Weeknote: 10 to 13 March 2025

Monday

A series of catch ups with colleagues in the morning, including running through my team’s contribution to the strategic planning event coming up later in the week. Mid-afternoon I popped down the road to the Queen’s Hotel to join an in-person meeting of digital leaders from the regional ambulance trusts, who were in Leeds for the annual Ambulance Leadership Forum. After that a call with colleagues about a narrative for the NHS App to feed into senior decision makers.

In my inbox was an announcement from our outgoing CEO about changes coming our way on a bigger scale than previously communicated.

Tuesday

Many colleagues were unsettled by the news of the changes – a radical reshaping of our organisation which could see the size of the “centre” decrease by half. As a member of my sub-directorate senior leadership team, I wanted colleagues to know that we were there for them. “I have no new news,” I told them on Slack and Teams, but I did have a selection of healthy and unhealthy snacks. If anyone wanted to talk, I would be in the Library, a quiet space in our Leeds office. Over 3 hours, I had some quality conversations with colleagues which brought home to me the personal impacts of the coming organisation change on people’s families and finances.

In the afternoon, our Digital Urgent and Emergency Care Assurance Board, where we meet with colleagues from across the UEC sector to get their input on planned changes to our national products and services. What could have been a difficult conversation about one legacy product went well thanks to thorough preparation and negotiation by my colleagues ahead of the board.

After work, a meet up for RSA fellows in Leeds. I’ve been a fellow for a couple of years now, but this was the first in-person event I’ve been to. Hopefully there will be more.

Wednesday

Back at the Queen’s Hotel with members of my team for an Ambulance Leadership Forum session. All the presenters gave good accounts of their work, and we had some great conversations about opportunities to do even more for ambulance services with the national digital products that we build, run, and maintain.

My London-based senior leadership team colleagues were also in town, so we spent the afternoon together sharing our own perspectives on the coming changes, and how we would need to navigate the next few months with our teams. We have lots to do, and need to keep up the pace of digital delivery even while many people will be feeling vulnerable and distracted.

Thursday

Product and Platforms strategic planning day. Each of our teams took turns to run through their roadmaps and priorities. Then we broke into groups to explore how we contribute to big NHS initiatives such as neighbourhood health. The product and user-centred design team have been running these quarterly planning events for a year or so now. Every one is different, but always useful and energising for those who take part.

The team presentations were just getting going when phones started to buzz with national news alerts. Our organisation, which I only recently gave up calling “the new NHS England”, was to be merged into our parent department, with a radical downsizing. In the room, with our amazing multidisciplinary team of product, UCD, and technology specialists, we processed the news together.

Regular readers-between-the-lines of my weeknotes may have discerned that the organisational set up now being undone has been far from perfect. At times, it has felt like the most dysfunctional and frustrating place to do digital service design and delivery. It could not go on like this. I have high hopes for what comes next, but am under no illusion that it’s going to be a trying time. Leading with care will be more important than ever.

I took Friday off for a long weekend. Sometimes four days is plenty.