Back to work after a much-needed week off, during which we attended the funeral of a family friend who died too soon. What did I enjoy? Spending every day of the week in the new Leeds office, including chance meetings with colleagues, almost like the old days. I was especially pleased to hear that Rochelle … Continue reading Weeknote: 20 to 24 March 2023
What did I learn? Three out of five days were taken up with module three of the Project Leadership Programme (PLP) at Cranfield University. Having switched cohorts due to a work commitment after module one, this time I felt I knew my fellow participants a little better, and enjoyed breaktime and dinner conversation with them, … Continue reading Weeknote: 6 to 10 March 2023
Call to action "If you were talking to a patient about how to access services, what would you say?" I joined a meeting with some very senior leaders, led by colleagues from the NHS England strategy team, who are doing a rapid piece of work to help us answer that question more clearly. Service access … Continue reading Weeknote: 27 February to 3 March 2023
Team get-together A long delayed get-together for the "legacy NHS England" colleagues in my Digital Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) team. As a geographically-dispersed team, this was the largest number of us all together in one place since I took on my current role in March 2021. Originally it was going to be a team … Continue reading Weeknote: 20 to 24 February 2023
A calmer week than usual, perhaps because many colleagues were on half term holidays. Even so, writing these notes, I realise I packed a lot in. Also a return to the office milestone: for the first time I worked in Quarry House 5 days running. That was my personal choice, and I'm fortunate to live … Continue reading Weeknote: 13 to 17 February 2023
Connecting our service I spent some time this week trying to make sure teams were talking to each other about various strands of activity that are running in parallel across digital urgent and emergency care. They're all coming at different aspects of the same problem from different angles, and while each has a separate rationale … Continue reading Weeknote: 6 to 10 February 2023
A note covering the past week, and also the working day I put in between Christmas and New Year. How did I make expectations clear? After a hectic run-up to Christmas, I was glad to have a meeting-free day to go back to my work objectives and identify the things I really need to focus … Continue reading Week-and-a-bit-note: 29 December 2022 to 6 January 2023
For the last few years I've spent a little of my Christmas downtime curating my own personal filter bubble in the form of a list of people whose every post I want to see. Previously I derived a Twitter list of people I retweeted most in the preceding 12 months, adjusted for balance of gender and … Continue reading Microblogging migration: my New Year list of people whose every post I want to see
Only 3 days in work this week because I took 2 days off to celebrate my oldest son's graduation for his Master's degree. Boy #1 got a distinction to add to his first class Classics BA. Something, something, social mobility - he is the third generation of Manchester graduates in the family. We took him … Continue reading Short weeknote: 12 to 16 December 2022
What did I enjoy? Meeting in person with colleagues who have been working together on our future operating model for the Product directorate in the new NHS England, and with other members of the senior leadership team for the directorate. We also went out for dinner and drinks together. The next day, I joined the … Continue reading Weeknote: 5 to 9 December 2022
What was hard? I was hit by a bad cold for most of this week, which was a terrible week to be below par due to important deadlines in the operating model work. To be fair, when I read back over my weeknotes, almost every week for the last 2 months has had important deadlines … Continue reading Weeknote: 28 November to 2 December 2022
What did I enjoy? Getting back to some digital urgent and emergency care work after a few weeks mainly focused on our product directorate operating model. On Tuesday, I got out of the office to to learn about innovation at North West Ambulance Service. I'm always impressed by the NWAS digital team's test and learn … Continue reading Weeknote: 21 to 25 November 2022
What was hard? A full-on week as we had an important internally driven deadline on our operating model in the new NHS England. There was a lot of work to gather information, collate it, and present it in a way that is meaningful for colleagues who know little about what our teams do. This has … Continue reading Weeknote: 14 to 18 November 2022
What did I enjoy? Helen, Lara, and I presented to an advisory group of NHS England and NHS Digital exec and non-exec directors about the shift we're making to a product mindset across our new organisation. We had a good discussion and an encouraging response. It's always helpful to hear how our most senior decision-makers … Continue reading Weeknote: 7 to 11 November 2022
What did I enjoy? Returning to work on Thursday to see the progress that colleagues had made while I was away. It's a somewhat guilty pleasure because I know it was a tough five-day week for many people, so I tried not to be too smug about swanning in with only two days to go. … Continue reading Weeknote: 3 to 4 November 2022
Matt Edgar writes here 