Weeknotes s03e42
TL;DR: Ramping up planning for Digital schemes for elective recovery. Committee blushes. Celebrating our staff.
[week ending 26/11/2021]
Who did you talk to outside of your organisation? A meeting about reporting on elective performance with, Pete from the CCG, Matt from the Midlands NHSI team, and Jamil from the Health Intelligence team. This was a follow on from the proposal from Matt the other week about the metrics we should report on across the ICS.
A conversation with KPMG about the criteria under which cloud services can be capitalised. We’re paying for some professional advice in this area, to help inform our approach on the digital schemes we’ve been funded (through the Targeted Investment Fund (TIF)) to deliver in the remainder of this financial year (more TIF stuff later).
We had our weekly check-in on the Midlands Digital Health Skills Development Network. We reviewed the material for a year 1 programme and discussed the prospect of a physical conference in 2022.
A quick talk to a conference organiser about joining a panel at a conference in March 2022. I wanted to check that it wasn’t going to be an all-white, all-male panel — a “Manel”, in which case I was out. I was reassured that I’m part of a diverse panel, so will keep an eye on that as the time nears.
What would you have liked to do more of? I had a session with my reverse mentor who continues to hold me to account. She reminded me of the Board Development session earlier this month where Mark (Chief People Officer) and I, presented some proposals about going further faster to tackle racism and its historical impact in our organisations. Mark and I have the notes from that session, but haven’t written it up yet.
What do you wish you could have changed? I joined a committee meeting this week to present on a couple of items. I’d made a number of assumptions on how much pre-briefing had taken place to ensure there was a common understanding of the scope of the papers. That didn’t happen and two of the decisions I was seeking didn’t happen. So I left the meeting kicking myself that I hadn’t checked what briefing had taken place, and also taking the time to make a few phone calls myself. I rang the chair later on in the week to apologise and propose a way that we could resolve the situation and take the decision to the Board next month. We have a way forward, and my blushes have about died down.
What did you learn? I met with Leanna, chair of the NGH REACH Network. Every time we speak I learn more about what an amazing woman she is. I heard about the changes she made to move therapies into the virtual world as the pandemic struck last year. She’s also got some great ideas about an app and is working on a conference next year. We also talked about some research she wanted to do on representation of people who’ve come to Trust Boards via the Allied Health Profession route. The hypothesis is that number is near zero — indicated by NHSE’s profile of Suzanne Rastrick, NHSE’s Chief Allied Health Professions Officer.“Suzanne was the first Allied Health Professional (AHP) to hold a substantive Director of Nursing post in both providing and commissioning organisations.”
What did you enjoy? I met with Faizal to talk about his draft Topol Digital fellowship application. We submitted three applications last year and didn’t get any accepted. The competion for these places are really fierce, but I’m really hopeful this year that we get at least one.
What did you achieve? It was the NGH Board this week. We had a powerful (video) story from a patient with autism, and their experience of care over a bank holiday. I think that these stories really set the context of the meeting of why we need to strive to do better every day. I presented two items — one on the metrics we’ve agreed to use in the new Group integrated performance report, which has been through various committee stages. The second paper was a progress report on the Group Digital Strategy, six months on. I’d prepared an update against each of the eight themes.
I also shared this update with the consultant body in a letter this week, along with a prompt to complete the national EPR user experience survey.
We did a bit more planning about the TIF schemes this week, including assessing cloud viability and starting to think about governance and how the various pieces of work report into existing structures rather than standing up something new for the short period.
The first stage of the procurement of some digital capability closed this week to support the TIF schemes. I’ve done a first pass on the 23 applications submitted and will look to move that on as soon as possible next week.
We also started thinking about some of the other things we need to support work of this size, such as extra help in finance, IG and the practicality of on-boarding a considerable number of temporary people in short order.
I also made a start on looking at some data on waiting lists and assessing this against protected groups. It’s much harder to draw any conclusions that the work I’d previous done on elective procedures. I’m gonna need some help!
It was the staff awards evening this week. I didn’t have a speaking part, but I joined colleagues at the hotel where the live broadcast was taking place, splitting my time between the KGH and NGH broadcasts. It was a brilliant evening, mixing live and pre-recorded content and was so professionally done. It was good to acknowledge the brilliant staff we have across the two Trusts, and celebrate their good work.
What are you looking forward to next week?
- A show and tell about the Bed Tetris work, which has competed its first phase of work
- KGH Board — link to papers and livestream.
- System Digtial Transformation meeting
- Timeout with Group Exec colleagues
Interesting Stuff read/consumed:
- The false hope of current approaches to explainable artificial intelligence in health care in the Lancet. Interesting article that argues that due to “increased transparency can hamper users’ ability to detect sizable model errors and correct for them”.. and therefore … “we caution against having explainability be a requirement for clinically deployed models” . The article argues that “Instead of requiring local explanations from a complicated AI system, we should advocate for thorough and rigorous validation of these systems across as many diverse and distinct populations as possible, showing that patient and health-care outcomes are improved and that marginalised groups are not disproportionately affected by any given system.”. When you first read this it seems counter-intuitive, but I remember reading a paper a couple of years ago that assessed the factors associated with DNAs for MRI appointments — there was something in the region of 82 contributing factors; well beyond the realms of explainability.
- Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Training: A good practice guide at NHS Employers.
- NHS digital reorganisation: start by working in the open by Chris Fleming. Big announcement this week about NHS Digital and NHSX coming under the organisational structure of NHSE. Chris and I worked together at NHS Digital and he took over as programme director for the NHS App when I left. He’s a super intelligent, sensible chap and what he writes is worth looking at. Chuckled when he says “Use the practice of working in the open to manage dependencies and duplication, instead of relying on spreadsheets held by Programme Management Offices. Get senior leaders to publish weeknotes”. Would love to see that!
Books finished this week:
- Fiction: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Based on a strange magical concept that gets better and better as the book progresses.
- Non-Fiction: More by Simon Ponsonby.
Currently Reading:
- Fiction: None.
- Non-Fiction: Provided you don’t kiss me by Duncan Hamilton. A biography on Brian Clough I’m reading for our home bookclub.
- Non-Fiction: How to Be Less Stupid about Race by Crystal Marie Fleming.
- Non-Fiction: Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
