Weeknote: 13 to 17 November 2023

Who did you talk to outside of your organisation?

A visit to South East Coast Ambulance Service’s new Gillingham site. The 999 and 111 call centres are located above a make-ready centre where ambulances are cleaned and restocked between shifts. I joined members of our Patient and Public Voice Board for Digital Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) in learning how SECAmb’s dedicated staff support a wide range of calls, including mental health. It was great to hear our PPV Board members’ questions and perspectives, along with those of colleagues from our merged team – legacy NHS England and NHS Digital colleagues attended. Getting out of the building is always refreshing, so the Gillingham visit was definitely a highlight of my week.

What else did you enjoy?

I enjoyed seeing work coming together across a couple of initiatives that are important for the future of our Digital UEC products and services. On Monday, we had a deep dive on our work across 111 online and the NHS App. Senior colleagues gave us good feedback about how to tell the story, which the team took on board for a meeting with our minister on Friday. And on Thursday morning, we had an expert working group with people who lead a number of 111 services around the country, looking at how digital can enable the future of 111. Team members had worked hard to prepare for the session. That paid off with a great conversation and lots to follow up. I could see a narrative emerging across both the expert review and ministerial meeting which shows how our delivery this year is enabling improvement in existing care pathways, and will unlock wider service transformation in the future.

On Thursday, around 100 colleagues gathered in a breakout area in the Leeds office for a “Welcome to Product and Platforms” event for our new team of teams. I was asked to share what’s exciting about working in Digital UEC. My answers:

• We make a big difference every day to patients and the frontline staff who support them, touching the toughest moments in a person’s life
• In UEC, we find out really quickly whether a change is making a difference – we have lots of actionable data to drive improvement
• We’re truly multidisciplinary – digital, data, technology, and clinical colleagues all have to work together to deliver safely and effectively
• We collaborate with national, regional, and local systems, and with our partners elsewhere in the new NHS England who own UEC policy and operations
• We’re distributed geographically but we also make good use of our bases for regular in-person team meetings and workshops
• We love to get out of the building and learn about the services we support, including ambulance trusts and 111 contact centres 

What do you wish you could have changed?

I saw some “storming” behaviour among colleagues who are now slotted into their roles in our merged organisation but remain anxious about their status in it. Simple words and actions seem to be easily misinterpreted as slights and exclusion at the moment. I’m impatient to see some clear, interlinked objectives for everyone so we can move on from talking about roles and teams in the abstract to the reality of what each person intends to do, and how we’re going to support each other, as we deliver for patients and frontline staff in the coming months.

What are you looking forward to next week?

A trip to the Canary Wharf office for the London leg of our “Welcome to Product and Platforms” events, and show and tells from a couple of teams working on important pieces of work.