Commissioning for Value: Pathways on a page: NHS Wigan Borough CCG – NHS Right Care

The Pathways on a Page packs are the latest in a series of Commissioning for Value support packs for CCGs. These packs are designed to support CCG’s with local discussions around commissioning decisions. They will:

• help to identify areas where there is the greatest opportunity for improved clinical outcomes;
• highlight where your CCG is already securing good outcomes from the money you invest;
• suggest areas you may wish to look at more closely and consider investing more heavily or disinvest from;
• identify areas where other similar CCGs are getting better value outcomes for their communities;
• help to prioritise, in a systematic way, areas which could benefit from improved quality;
• identify wasted investment that could be better spent elsewhere; and
• help to provide a transparent process for priority setting and decision making.

The packs use standardised data to compare performance but additionally group CCGs into their peer groups based on their demographic makeup.

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You can’t be a great manager if you’re not a good coach – Harvard Business Review Blog

This considers how the experience of making progress of work is something which is personally meaningful. It looks at how as a leader you can use this to better understand what motivates and drives an individual. With this information you can use coaching techniques such as deep listening and asking the correct questions to create and sustain a developmental alliance, move forward positively and create accountability.

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Act like an entrepreneur inside your organization – Harvard Business Review Blog

Looks at how to create more innovation within large organisations. It offers a four steps to help manage entrepreneurs within large organisations to help assess desire and how much you are willing to commit. Then help to identifies how to work out who to ‘bring along’ and how act on the action.

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NHS leaders and major service change – British Journal of Healthcare Management

This articles discusses the challenge of delivering change that improves sustainability, clinical outcomes and service.  It also discusses how this challenge becomes an increasingly difficult one for NHS leaders as elections draw nearer.

 This resource requires an OpenAthens account you can register here from an NHS connected computer (you can email us to request one) or call the Trust Library Service on 01942 822508.

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Supporting your people – Mind Tools

This article looks at how to keep the team happy and effective, by determining they have the appropriate support to do their job. It considers questions to ask, provision of managerial and emotional support, health and safety and equipment requirements.

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Using stretch goals with your team – Mind Tools

Stretch goals are ones which seem impossible at the time. This article explains vertical their pros and cons and practical tips on implementing within a team.

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The Future of NHS Leadership: unpicking Griffiths’ complex legacy – Health Service Journal Article

Following three decades of healthcare management change in the wake of the milestone Griffiths report, it is time to reflect on past reforms and future leadership challenges.

The future of NHS leadership: unpicking Griffiths’ complex legacy – (HSJ Article request full text from Trust Library Services or call 01942 822508)

The Right Way to Present Your Business Case – Harvard Business Review Blog

You’ve already put a great deal of work into preparing a solid business case for your project or idea. But when it comes to the critical presentation phase, how do you earn the support of decision makers in the room? How do you present your case so that it’s clear and straightforward while also persuasive?

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The inverted-u model – Mind Tools

Sometimes known as Yerkes-Dodson Law, this model shows the balance between pressure and performance. It looks at the influencers of the model and how being aware of them can help with job allocation within a team and how it can improve motivation and confidence.

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The Emotional Boundaries You Need at Work – Harvard Business Review Blog

To develop meaningful and mature relationships at work or at home we need to develop two filters. The first filter protects you from other people. The second filter protects other people from you.

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Keep Time and Emotion from Killing a Negotiation – Harvard Business Review Blog

Time and emotion — these are the two things most often wasted during a negotiation. We simply spend too much time on items that don’t really matter, because we let our emotions override any semblance of logic.   This article discusses five areas that can both help move a negotiation forward and in doing so usually advance us to where we want to be.

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Teams Are More Comfortable with Ambiguity than Individuals Are – Harvard Business Review Blog

In a series of experiments on choices between sure amounts of money and various kinds of gambles, researchers found that three-person groups are both less averse to ambiguity and less inclined to seek it — in other words, are more neutral about ambiguity — than are individuals. A possible reason is that individuals’ extreme attitudes toward ambiguity, either negative or positive, tend to be softened by persuasive arguments from other group members, says a team led by Steffen Keck of Insead. The findings suggest that teams may be better than individuals at handling tasks involving imprecise probabilities, such as long-term planning.

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The funding paradox: The Better Care Fund – British Journal of Healthcare Management.

Nick Timmins, senior fellow at the Institute for Government and the King’s Fund discusses the challenges of re-shaping services with financial constraints.

This resource requires an OpenAthens account you can register here from an NHS connected computer (you can email us to request one) or call the Trust Library Service on 01942 822508.

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Trust to open bullying helpine for staff – HSJ Article

An acute trust plans to open a 24-hour helpline for its staff after almost 30 per cent reported being bullied by colleagues and managers.

Trust to open bullying helpline for staff – (HSJ Article request full text from Evidence Services or call 01942 822508)

Everything you need to know about sickness absence: a simple guide for NHS managers – NHS Employers

This online tool aims to further improve the  management of staff sick leave in the NHS. It answers questions such as, what do you do when a staff member calls in sick? How do you handle long-term or recurring absences? How can managers reduce stress, support staff to return to work and prevent sickness absence from becoming an issue in the first place?

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How would seven-day elective care look for junior doctors? – British Journal of Healthcare Management.

Seven-day working is an extremely topical and much-debated subject.  This article details three potential options from the trainee perspective and how they will impact on doctor-to-patient ratios throughout the week.

This resource requires an OpenAthens account you can register here from an NHS connected computer (you can email us to request one) or call the Trust Library Service on 01942 822508.

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Improving NHS care by engaging staff and devolving decision-making – the King’s Fund 

An independent review for the government has concluded that more NHS organisations should be encouraged to become public service mutuals. The review, led by Chris Ham, Chief Executive of The King’s Fund, found compelling evidence that NHS organisations with high levels of staff engagement – where staff are strongly committed to their work and involved in decision-making – deliver better quality care. While staff engagement levels have increased across the NHS in recent years, the review found significant variations between organisations. It calls on all NHS organisations to make staff engagement a key priority in order to improve care at a time of unprecedented financial and service pressures.

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Tech will transform the doctor-patient relationship – HSJ Article

In this article Jen Hyatt discusses her favourite healthcare innovations from the NT100, which showcases how digital technology can be used for social change.

Tech will trasform the doctor-patient relationship – (HSJ Article request full text from Evidence Services or call 0151 285 4493)

4 ways leaders can create a candid culture  – Harvard Business Review Blog

How organisational culture can be improved by providing public praise, leading discussions with opinion leaders, teaching how be open and have ‘crucial conversations’ and personal sacrifice of own ego.

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Learning styles – Mind Tools

Describes the 8 key learning styles and how to use them to develop you learning skills or teach others.

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Cognitive load theory – Mind Tools

Explanation of how we process information and how this knowledge can be used to improve our working memory capacity. How this model can be applied to training and learning is discussed.

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You Can’t Be a Great Manager If You’re Not a Good Coach – Harvard Business Review Blog

This article discusses how the most powerfully motivating condition people experience at work is making progress at something that is personally meaningful. 

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How to Spread Empathy in Health Care – Harvard Business Review Blog

Social network scientists have shown that emotions and values can spread in a community with the same patterns as infectious diseases. They have described how the people who are most connected to others may be the first ones to get hot gossip, but they are also most likely to get the scary new virus that has just shown up in town. These observations suggest an interesting opportunity for making health care better, and even more efficient – if health care organizations can figure out how to create an “epidemic of empathy.”

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To Do Things Better, Stop Doing So Much – Harvard Business Review Blog

Podcast on the importance of being “absurdly selective” in how we use our time.

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Adapt to a New Culture – but Don’t Go Too Far – Harvard Business review Blog

One of the most popular pieces of advice that people receive when operating across cultures is, “When in Rome, Act Like the Romans.” This advice essentially means that in order to be successful in a situation different from your own, you need to adapt to the local customs, whatever they happen to be. But what happens when you don’t have a perfect read on what these customs or rules exactly are?

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From harm to hope and purposeful action: what could we do after Francis? – BMJ Quality and safety article.

Responses to the reports on the inquiry into Mid Staffordshire have resulted in calls from politicians, NHS leaders and the public to improve care across the NHS in England. However, the substance of what needs to be done remains unclear. In this paper, we offer seven key ‘ingredients’ required to sustain improvement of care, supported by evidence drawn from published literature. We believe that empowering and upskilling the front-line workforce in understanding and implementing improvement techniques, supported by changes at system and policy level and reinforced by what leaders say and do, will result in sustainable benefit for patients and families, as well as greater satisfaction for staff.

This resource requires an OpenAthens account you can register here from an NHS connected computer (you can email us to request one) or call teh Trust Library Service on 01942 822508.

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Embed Routines and Rituals (Principle #5) – An Obsession With Transformation Blog

The smallest unit of change is a habit, and it takes about thirty days to form one. Making the routines and rituals below everyday habits will enable you to maximize your effectiveness – no matter what’s happening in your environment. This blog post from Peter Fuda describes tools to help embed routine and ritual.

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3 Reasons You Underestimate Risk – Harvard Business Review Blog

In hindsight, many risks seem obvious.  And when we do take the time to evaluate potential risks, there is often not much that is profound about them.  Yet so many of us fall prey to unforeseen risks, believing that they came out of nowhere or that they could not have been anticipated.  While this may be true in some cases, most of the time risk blindness occurs due to the way our brains are wired. Here are three reasons why we’re blind to risk, and what we can do about it.

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Understanding developmental needs – Mind Tools

6 step plan to determine developmental needs of a team. It recommends a looking at the individual by reviewing job description, meeting with people on an individual basis to discuss learning needs, observation at work, gathering additional data, analysing the data you have received and development of an action plan.

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How to Avoid Collaboration Fatigue – Harvard Business Review Blog

It’s nearly impossible to escape a meeting or conference call without someone touting the virtues of collaboration. After all, researchers have linked collaboration to increased innovation, and many have compellingly argued for collaboration’s role in better leadership performance. Collaboration just feels right — like a big hug or a warm puppy.  But collaboration also has an overlooked dark side.

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Medical engagement: A journey not an event – The King’s Fund

Report from the King’s Fund that asks the questions what is good medical engagement? In those organisations where it exists, how has good medical engagement been created and sustained? It calls for:

• Medical engagement should be an integral part of the culture of all health care organisations and should be a priority for NHS boards and leaders.
• It requires investment in development and training and also in governance arrangements to support the culture.

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To Make a Better Bet, Use Trial and Error – Harvard Business Review Blog

We tend to romanticize entrepreneurs, inventors, and great business minds. We have this notion that they are a rare breed of people who are lucky enough to be hit by strokes of brilliance that the rest of us can’t even fathom.  But the truth is that science doesn’t work that way, and neither does business. To succeed, we really need to trade in our blue sky brainstorming sessions for some old fashioned trial and error.

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Selecting Health Technology for the Triple Aim – Institute for Healthcare Improvement

This is a report of an IHI Innovation Project that aimed to scan for health technology innovations that will provide the greatest value to health systems working to achieve the IHI Triple Aim.

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Spreading Improvement Ideas – The Health Foundation

This research scan from the Health Foundation focuses on the practical things teams and organisations can do to publicise and spread new ideas and ways of working.

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Medical engagement: change or die – The King’s Fund

The challenge still remains to demonstrate that health care is first and foremost focused on the needs of the patient even after Francis, Berwick and Keogh and the new Care Quality Commission inspection regime. 

There has been a  call for the doctors to step up and engage in management and leadership. This article discusses how we move from rhetoric to reality and more importantly why should doctors embrace this responsibility?

The article describes an intervention witnessed in Seattle that underpinned the drive to put patients first with a new management process, and the resulting culture which encouraged more doctors to take the lead on driving quality and innovation.

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Future leaders need to lead people not organisations – The King’s Fund

Do the pressures of leadership result in leaders being less kind to staff and becoming so feared that the team’s ideas and creativity are stifled? This King’s Fund blog post looks at these issues.

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Building trust inside your team – Mind Tools

Explains the importance of trust and some strategies for building trust with in a team both in person and virtually.

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 Developing collective leadership for healthcare – Kings Fund

This report by the Kings Fund and Centre for Creative Leadership highlights the need for collective leadership throughout the NHS and provides case studies of how this is already happening across the UK.

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Transformational leadership – Mind Tools

Explains transformational leadership and provides tips on rising to the challenge.

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Helping your people find purpose in their work – Mind Tools

How we can give reason to work and use this to write meaningful mission statements, link personal drivers to the organisation and find hidden strengths.

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The JD-R model – Mind Tools

This is a model designed to analyse an employee’s wellbeing. It can be used to evaluate motivation and help understand team needs and how to respond to them.

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Snyder’s hope theory – Mind Tools

This theory argues that there are three main elements which generate hopeful thinking: goals, pathways and agency. This article looks at the importance of hope and how you can use the three elements to drive change.

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Whistleblowing Framework: Call For Evidence – Government Response – Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS)

Government response to a consultation on whistleblowing that identifies 5 core themes:

1. The balance of power between the whistleblower and the employer and support both parties receive.
2. The level of protection the whistleblower receives.
3. The roles the regulators/prescribed persons play in the whistleblowing process.
4. The categories of worker covered by the provisions and who qualifies for the protections.
5. The need for culture change in this area.

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Why we must value leaders from the third sector – The King’s Fund

The need to lead culture change by not only celebrating inspirational leaders, but by ensuring they are drawn from a diverse pool of talent, including the third sector has been highlighted at the recent leadership summit. This article asks how well are leaders in the third sector supported to take up this leadership challenge?

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Changing how we change the NHS – NHS Improving Quality

The NHS is the biggest single healthcare system in the world and it deserves to be recognised as being the best at healthcare improvement in the world. NHS Improving Quality’s new Managing Director Steve Fairman examines how we’re changing the way we change and improve the NHS.

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Understanding the new NHS: A guide for everyone working and training within the NHS – NHS England

An updated guide on the structure and function of the NHS

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All together now: Making integration happen – NHS Confederation

Sets out the case for change, our shared vision for integration and the action the Government needs to take to make real and sustainable progress. Identifies what the NHS Confederation and Local Government Association will do in partnership to support local system leaders to drive forward local plans for integration.

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Toxic Talent Management Habits – Harvard Business Review Blog

All organizations have problems, and they always involve people. Indeed, talent management issues are a major cause of organizational underperformance. The author discusses five specific bad talent habits that he believes threaten the effectiveness of the modern organization.

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The Cost of Continuously Checking Email – Harvard Business Review Blog

This article looks at how ‘multi-tasking’ or shifting attention from one activity to another can affect productivity and offers advice on how to improve working practices.

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Fundamental standards: improving quality and transparency in care – GOV.UK

The government has announced legislation which introduces fundamental standards for health and social care providers. Subject to parliamentary approval, they will become law in April 2015.
The new measures are being introduced as part of the government’s response to the Francis Inquiry’s recommendations and are intended to help improve the quality of care and transparency of providers by insuring that those responsible for poor care can be held to account.

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Staff engagement case studies – NHS Employers

NHS Employers has been working with three NHS organisations, including WW&L, to profile particular aspects of their approaches to engagement.

Speaking to representatives from Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust and Medway Community Health, we have pulled together case studies focussing on their journey, the challenges and the outcomes.

Some of the key outcomes include, major improvements in national staff survey results, reductions in sickness absence and staff feeling more valued.

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The Power of Meeting Your Employees’ Needs – Havard Business Review Blog

Results of a survey conducted at HBR.org that show that people feel better and perform better and more sustainably when four basic needs are met: renewal (physical); value (emotional), focus (mental) and purpose (spiritual).

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Innovation Is Marketing’s Job, Too – Harvard Business Review Blog

This article describes a formula that’s been tested and proven at GE, that might aid marketers looking to create value and drive innovation in their businesses.

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Everything You Need to Know About Giving Negative Feedback – Harvard Business Review Blog

There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there on giving corrective feedback. If you really need to criticize someone’s work, how should you do it? This article offers research- and experience-based advice on what to do, and what to avoid.

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What Makes People Follow Reluctant Leaders – Harvard Business Review Blog

In today’s knowledge-based and highly-automated enterprises, companies look for the cleverest and most capable people they can find. But having hired such talent, organizations face a challenge. Places full of highly mobile and in-demand workers operate more democratically.  Leaders don’t necessarily gain power by dint of high rank; they need to earn it every day. How do they do that? And, for the would-be leader in an organization like this, what are the secrets to rising to the top?

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5 Common Questions Leaders Should Never Ask – Harvard Business Review Blog

Questioning is undoubtedly a valuable leadership tool. Asking the right questions can help business leaders to anticipate changes, seize opportunities, and move their organizations in new directions.

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When Two of Your Coworkers Are Fighting – Harvard Business Review Blog

People disagree at work. That’s a given. But what if there’s an all-out war between two of your coworkers? What’s the right way to respond? If the people fighting are your direct reports, you have a duty to intervene, but what if they’re your peers? Should you play the role of peacekeeper? Or should you just stay out of it?  This article discusses this problem.

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Sustaining And Assuring The Quality Of Student Nurse Mentorship: What Are The Challenges? – National Nursing Research Unit (NNRU)

Providing mentorship to nursing students is the cornerstone of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)
education standards, which ensure nurses are fit for practice at the point of registration

• Assuring the quality of mentorship is a concern to the higher education and healthcare providers who share responsibility for it, particularly at a time when nursing competence is much in the public eye
• Drawing on NNRU research, this Policy Plus focuses on perspectives of HEI and service personnel on sustaining and assuring the quality of mentorship within a difficult economic climate and at a time of debate about its future direction

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The Paying-It-Forward Payoff – Harvard Business Review Blog

Most of us are familiar with direct reciprocity – the idea that people respond to kind actions directed toward them with other kind actions. But generalized reciprocity — “you help me and I help someone else” can be a bit trickier to measure. New research, however, shows that it might be possible for companies to encourage such generosity among employees.

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Organizing integrated care in a university hospital: application of a conceptual framework – International Journal Of Integrated Care Article

Finds that integrated care can be a relevant concept for a hospital. Although the organizational models may challenge established professional boundaries and financial control systems, this concept can be a more promising way to improve the quality of care than the industrial models that have been imported into health care. This application of the concept may also contribute to widen the field of integrated care.

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Future organisational models for the NHS – The King’s Fund

This publication explores some of the organisational options available, including how high-performing NHS organisations might support providers in difficulty.

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Future organisational models for the NHS: Perspectives for the Dalton review – The King’s Fund

Report from the King’s Fund that finds:

• Most of the organisational models reviewed (buddying, learning and clinical networks, partnerships and joint ventures, managerial/operational franchise, mergers, and hospital chains) could help drive improvements in the quality of NHS services.
• The higher the degree of organisational change, the higher the risk that the benefits will not be delivered
• Common success factors across all the different organisational models include: good working relationships; a strong and shared focus on quality improvement that can be measured; and a focus on changing organisational culture.
• The skills required to lead different organisational models are often different from those required to run a successful single institution.

There is also growing consensus that a trust’s problems cannot be solved without taking a whole system solution and perspective

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Recruit Your Stakeholders (Principle #4) – An Obsession With Transformation Blog

Fourth of Peter Fuda’s posts about the journey to increased personal effectiveness like a set of Russian Dolls that fit neatly together. The goal is to align your journey (doll) with those of your key stakeholders above and below you.

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Sign up to Safety: Monitor commits to improving safety and reducing avoidable harm in the NHS – Montior

Monitor is supporting the Sign up to Safety campaign, launched by the Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt, which aims to reduce avoidable harm by 50% and save 6,000 lives over the next 3 years.

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NHS performance: are we really getting it right? – The Commonwealth Fund

In a comparative study of health system performance by The Commonwealth Fund, the UK ranks first across a range of measures covering quality, access and efficiency of care, while the US comes in last place.

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Improving surgical inpatient ward lists in a large acute hospital: a simple yet effective process to save the time of junior house officers – BMJ Quality Improvement Report

Identifies the process of creating an effective, easy to use, and useful inpatient ward list can lead to large amount of time saved each day for the staff responsible for its management. This time can then be reinvested on clinical duties, or education, to further improve the healthcare service we provide.

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When to Schedule Your Most Important Work – Harvard Business Review Blog.

If you work with a team, chances are your inbox is often flooded with invitations. Internal meetings, client conference calls, the occasional lunch request. Assuming you have some control over your calendar, how you respond to these offers generally depends on two factors: the value of attending the meeting and your availability.

Rarely, however, do most consider a third factor in our decision-making criteria: the time of day when you are at your most productive.

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Say No Without Burning Bridges – Harvard Business review Blog

This article looks at how you can use a ‘neutral no’ when you need to say no to a co-worker or a boss.

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Create a coaching culture – People Management Article

The article focuses on the culture of coaching within business organizations. It discusses the usefulness of coaching to organizations, results of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development/Cornerstone OnDemand Learning and Development 2014 survey on coaching or mentoring programs of organizations, and the benefits of an internal coach.

This resource requires an OpenAthens account you can register here from an NHS connected computer (you can email us to request one) or call the Trust Library Service on 01942 822508.

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Sustaining and assuring the quality of student nurse mentorship: what are the challenges? – King’S Fund Health Management and Policy Alert.

This briefing from the National Nursing Research Unit (NNRU)focuses on sustaining and assuring the quality of mentorship within a difficult economic climate and at a time of debate about its future direction.

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How to Help an Underperformer – Harvard Business Review Blog

As a manager, you can’t accept underperformance. It’s frustrating, time-consuming, and it can demoralize the other people on your team. But what do you do about an employee who isn’t performing up to snuff? How do you help turn around the problematic behavior? And how long do you let it go on before you cut your losses?

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 Good Managers Look Beyond Their “Usual Suspects” – Harvard Business Review Blog

This article ask you to take a step back and think about how to expand your talent pool to get the actual results you want rather than relying on the same group of “usual suspects”.

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To Resolve a Conflict, First Decide: Is It Hot or Cold? – Harvard Business Review Blog.

As a leader, you’re going to face conflict. It comes with the territory. But before you try to deal with a conflict, you first need to stop and ask yourself the following question:
Is it hot or cold?
This article aims to help you answer this question. 

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Leadership for cultures of high-quality care – British Journal of Healthcare Management

If health care organisations are to deliver continually improving, high quality and compassionate care, cultures of many organisations have to change. In the best performing health care organisations, the vision and values of the organisation emphasise continual quality improvement in treatments; compassion, collaboration and integration of services. They ensure there are clear objectives derived from the vision, mission and strategy of the organisation at every level rather than a proliferation of overwhelming priorities. They ensure enlightened people management by leaders and managers who ‘get’ that if we want staff to treat patients with respect, care and compassion, they have to treat staff with respect, care and compassion.

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For Breakthrough Innovation, Focus on Possibility, Not Profitability – Harvard Business Review Blog

This article looks at the how Google is focused on possibility rather than profitability — a mindset that’s necessary to create innovations that transform categories.   The author argues that many breakthrough innovations have suffered when the profitability mindset creeps in and that Google should be admired for first setting out to answer the question: “Is this possible?”

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The Future is Already Here – Find It! – Discipline of Innovation Blog

It’s not enough just to look at what our direct competitors are doing – in fact, it might be counterproductive. Instead, we need to look into areas that face similar problems. For example, the NHS and then other health services started to learn how to work more effectively and more safely by adopting some of the methods used by Formula 1 pit crews. As Nilofer Merchant says, the social era is about connecting things, people and ideas. So you need to travel, meet people, and read. By doing these things purposefully, we can improve our scanning and connecting skills. Even if we’re introverts, we can look for experiences and ideas outside of our comfort zones.

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Adapt or Perish? How About Neither? – Discipline of Innovation Blog

In a changing environment, our choices are create the future, adapt or perish. If creating the future is the one that that we wish to follow, we are entering risky territory. But then, when things are changing, innovation might be the least risky option.

The skills we need to help cope with this risk are: experimenting, a focus on genuine human needs, and amplifying weak signals. These are all things that make it a little bit easier to find a way through – they are part of entrepreneurial judgment. They are part of inventing the future.

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Industrial Action And Contingency Planning – NHS Employers

Guidance from NHS Employers in the form of a question and answer briefing which aims to provide guidance to employers in the NHS on managing the legal and practical issues presented by the threat of industrial action.

It stresses that early engagement with local staff side representatives and open discussions remain a key element in successfully resolving issues before they escalate.

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Psychometric testing: the stark truth – People Management Article

The article discusses the accuracy of psychometric testing in predicting the performance of an employee. It discusses the case of Paul Flowers, former chairman of the Co-operative Bank, criticisms on the use of psychometric testing by hiring managers and a way to translate a test score into a meaningful outcome for a company.

This resource requires an OpenAthens account you can register here from an NHS connected computer (you can email us to request one) or call teh Trust Library Service on 01942 822508.

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Promoting engagement by patients and families to reduce adverse events in acute care settings: a systematic review – BMJ Quality & Safety.

 Patient-centeredness is central to healthcare. Hospitals should address patients’ unique needs to improve safety and quality. Patient engagement in healthcare, which may help prevent adverse events, can be approached as an independent patient safety practice (PSP) or as part of a multifactorial PSP.
This review examines how interventions encouraging this engagement have been implemented in controlled trials.

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Personalization of health care in England: have the wrong lessons been drawn from the personal health budget pilots? – Journal of Health Services Research & Policy.

A three-year programme of pilots has shown that personal health budgets, which have recently been introduced in the NHS, have improved outcomes and are generally cost-effective.

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Meeting the Challenge: Employee Engagement and the future of the NHS – IPA

Employee engagement is vital to high quality care in the NHS. Evidence shows it is linked to both patient satisfaction and quality of care. Argues that by better engaging with employees, the NHS will be more able to face the significant challenges of the next few years. Research shows that NHS Trusts which effectively engage their employees have higher levels of staff wellbeing and more satisfied patients; they have better clinical outcomes and they are more efficient. It’s increasingly clear that engagement is vital to high quality care in the NHS.

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Efficiency and perceptions of cost in healthcare – British Journal of Healthcare Mangement article

Are patients and healthcare professionals able to estimate the costs involved in delivering healthcare? Could a better awareness help to improve efficiency and effectiveness? This questionnaire-based study assessed whether those who deliver and those who receive healthcare are able to estimate the costs involved.

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Customer Procurement Savings Reports: Guidance Notes – NHS Supply Chain

Guidance on the use of Customer Procurement Savings Reports which have been developed to enable users to view and download details of the savings you have made on purchases through the NHS Supply Chain. These reports are part of a collaborative project between NHS Supply Chain and NHS Business Services Authority. Savings have been classified into seven categories, and two management tools have been specified.

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Networked innovation in the health sector: comparative qualitative study of the role of Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care in translating research into practice – Health Services and Delivery Research Article.

The aim of this report is to provide an independent and theory-based evaluation of CLAHRCs (Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care) as a new form of networked innovation in the health sector.

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How Monitor, CQC and the NHS Trust Development Authority will work together to assess how well led-organisations are – Kings Fund

One of the five questions CQC now asks of all providers is ‘how well-led is this organisation?’. The quality of leadership is one of the most important determinants of the quality and safety of services. This framework outlines the dimensions of leadership that organisations will be assessed on and allows organisations to align themselves with the common expectation of what good looks like.

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Monitor commits to a single view of what good leadership looks like – GOV.UK News

The 3 national NHS partners will develop an aligned framework for making judgements about how well-led NHS providers are.

The framework will ensure a consistent view which will form the basis of regulatory judgements. A joined-up approach will also remove unnecessary duplication and burden on NHS providers.

The partners intend to put these plans into action by October 2014 after testing the approach with NHS foundation trusts and NHS trusts. Monitor’s contribution has been captured in guidance to NHS foundation trust boards on how to assess the quality of their leadership, the ‘Well-led framework for Governance Reviews’ also published this week.

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Related publication: ‘Well-led framework for Governance Reviews’

The best leaders are humble leaders – Harvard Business Review Blog

Argues that leadership is about what the team can do together. Links are demonstrated between altruistic leadership and innovation and embededness of the employees within the organisation. It encourages leaders to share their mistakes as teachable moments, engage in conversations rather than debates, embrace uncertainty and be a role model as a ‘follower’.

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 Culture and leadership in the NHS The King’s Fund survey 2014 – The King’s Fund

In February and March 2014 The King’s Fund conducted a survey of NHS managers and clinicians about leadership, culture and compassionate care in the NHS.  This is a summary of the survey findings.

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 Collective leadership: fundamental to creating the cultures we need in the NHS – The King’s Fund

Positivity, compassion, respect, dignity, engagement and high-quality care are key to creating the cultures we need in the NHS. And, just as importantly, we must deal decisively, consistently and quickly with behaviours inconsistent with these values, regardless of the seniority of people exhibiting them.

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How can improving leadership help to transform the NHS? – The King’s Fund Blog

Managing high achievers – Mind Tools

How to recognise high achievers with tips on how best to manage them and keeping them motivated.

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The role of informal networks in creating knowledge among health-care managers: a prospective case study, Health Services and Delivery Research Article.

Health and well-being services, in common with many public services, cannot be delivered by a single organisation. Weight loss, exercise, smoking cessation and other programmes require the co-ordination of services delivered by several organisations in a locality. There is some evidence, mostly from other sectors, that middle managers play pivotal roles in this co-ordination. They have to find ways of co-ordinating services such that organisations are able to meet their own objectives while working together, and issues raised by cultural and other differences can be overcome. In doing so, they have to find ways of explaining what they do, and what they need to get done, to one another. This study focuses on the knowledge creation processes that underpin these activities, in the context of health and well-being services.

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Reducing sickness absence in the NHS using evidence based strategies – NHS Employers Report

The Department of Health (DH) commissioned a project to reduce sickness absence levels and improve staff health and wellbeing in 102 NHS trusts. The project, known as the Trust Support Project, worked with a cross-section of NHS organisations, including acute, mental health, specialist and ambulance services. The project was part of a series of actions to support NHS organisations achieve the quality, innovation, productivity and prevention (QIPP) target for reducing sickness absence.
This is a summary report of the project findings.

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Talent management – Mind Tools

Looks at how to develop talent as part of the organisational culture. It touches on aspects such as performance management, mentoring and succession planning.

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