Working together to make improvements

As it has been just over six months since I joined Pennine Care, I thought it would be a good opportunity to share my thoughts after a period of listening, talking to staff and taking stock of where we are in conjunction with the Board.

I have previously spoken about an independent Well-Led Review in my blog which was commissioned by the Board and took place in January and February. This review looked at several areas including whether we have a credible strategy, our culture, leadership (particularly at executive and Board level), how we learn and improve and how engaged staff are. The findings of the review were shared with Board towards the end of March and only by honestly assessing where we are can we truly enable meaningful changes and improvement to happen.

The findings provide a clear indication of what we’re doing well as an organisation but have also highlighted areas of improvement we need to focus on. The detailed findings will be used to develop an Organisational Development (OD) Improvement Plan of how we need to change the way the organisation is run to place the delivery of high quality, compassionate and continually improving care at the heart of everything we do. I am very keen that we provide an opportunity for staff to be involved in the development of our plans so that we can shape our future direction together. As part of getting that robust diagnostic of what we need to improve, we will also be conducting a cultural audit with staff to focus on how we do things at the Trust, what our values mean to us and what the Pennine Care way should be. Please look out for further updates on this in the near future.

Next steps

To support this important agenda I am looking to work with key clinical and managerial leaders and staff in a range of ways:

·       Trust Management Board: A new formal monthly business meeting will replace the current Executive Director Performance meetings from May onwards. This group will bring the Exec Directors together with representation from our managing directors, corporate heads and clinical leads to discuss organisational strategy and performance. Invites will be going out soon.

·       Collective Leadership Group: I will be establishing a new monthly informal forum comprising of our 40-50 senior managerial, clinical and professional leaders to help shape and influence the Trust’s direction of travel. We are planning a ‘launch’ of this group in early May.

·         Trust-wide Strategic Planning Days: Twice a year we will be holding a bigger workshop similar to the one held in November for a broad range of approximately 100+ staff to ensure team leaders are kept up to date on what is happening and have an opportunity to shape how we work.

·         Staff Reference Group: The existing staff engagement group will be expanded to include a good representation from across our services, managers and front line staff – some of whom I’ve identified on my visits to services who have been keen to be involved. This group will support me in overseeing the development of our OD Improvement Plan and work around our values and organisational culture. I am currently finalising arrangements and will be in touch very shortly with people who want to be involved to confirm how we take this forward.

How you can get involved

It’s important that we develop our areas for improvement in partnership with you, our staff, and there are a number of ways you can get involved:

·         Participate in our organisational culture engagement – we want to hear from you to gain a full perspective on the organisation so that we can strive towards improving things. Staff will have an opportunity to share their thoughts at focus groups or through the Go Engage surveys. Please look out for further updates.

·         Raise any thoughts or comments through your senior managers or leaders so that they can be fed into the above groups.

·         Let me know if you are interested in being involved in our staff engagement work or joining the Staff Reference Group. We will find a way to involve you, whether this is by way of a virtual network or other means. I can be contacted on:
ceo-penninecare@nhs.net

I look forward to updating you on developments.

Thank you for your continued support and contribution.

Claire Molloy

Chief Executive