Day 52: Back In The Swing Of Things

Back to work after a wonderful week in Thailand.  Brilliant to spend the day catching up with colleagues and Chairing our monthly quality and risk meeting.  Great conversations about how we can improve aspects of how we do things and innovate to make quality better.

One conversation was about the role of research within the organisation and how we can best use this for improvement.  Added value of demonstrating our capabilities is helpful, but our primary aim for research is to improve outcomes and experiences for the people we support and people who work with us to make this happen.

Day 51: Give The Gift Of Time

It’s Random Acts Of Kindness Day, but that doesn’t mean your acts of kindness have to be too random!  Plan to be kind in advance, as well as taking spontaneous opportunities as they arise.

One of the most valuable acts of kindness you can offer is your time.  It is only yours to give, no-one else can offer this.  It can not be reciprocated or retrieved.  Once given, it will be kept by the recipient for ever.

Plan to give your time to others.  Be altruistic, expecting nothing in return and don’t shout about ta you’ve done for the glory.

Day 50: Half Time

I can’t offer a Superbowl-like Half-Time Show, but can reflect on my first 50 days in this role…

In under 3 months I feel I am making a genuine contribution to this organisation and what it aspires to achieve.  I feel real affinity for how we do things and how we want to improve.

Of course there are many things that aren’t how I would like them to be and many relationships that still need a huge amount of investment and trust to build on them.  I feel I’ve made a good start and am getting some excellent constructive feedback.

Day 49: Talent Management

Interesting discussion today about talent management and where we want to be on the exclusive/inclusive spectrum.  It may seem obvious we should be inclusive, but the problem is when everyone is special, then no-one is.  However, one of Turning Point’s values is “We believe that everyone has the potential to grow, learn and make choices”.

We want to support all our people to achieve their potential.  We also want to identify current and future talent and support the nurturing of this for the benefit of both the individual and the organisation.  These are not mutually exclusive; we can do both.

Day 48: More Hours In The Day, Or More Days In The Week?

If you could, would you choose more hours each day or more days each week?  With more hours in the day, would you spend them working? How much do your answers reflect the pressure you feel to do your job or the enjoyment/fulfilment you get from it?

This may help you think about whether you currently have the right work-life balance and/or how much you enjoy your life outside of work.  I know I am lucky, but I love my life at home and at work and feel that at the moment I have the right balance between the two.

Day 47: Integration

The Government published its White Paper on Integration this week.  This intends to ensure that local needs are met in collaboration and decisions are made collectively by partners as close citizens’ needs as possible.  This requires significant co-operation and equal partnerships for those involved.

I sincerely hope that providers in social care are recognised as equally as our healthcare colleagues within and outside the NHS.  The White Paper refers to ALL partners being involved and achieving digital maturity, but omits to describe in any sensible detail how the workforce challenge will be met and the significant vacancies and skill-deficit filled.

Day 46: One Step At A Time

At our Board meeting today we heard from one of the people we support in our services.  Their story was extremely powerful in demonstrating the hugely positive impact of what we provide to support their progress from a long-institutional stay.

They felt extremely empowered, engaged in their own care, positive about what was to come and making plans.  What struck me most was how they described the way they saw their future in a measured and composed way; being sensible to think about what was next but taking each day as it comes and not wanting to rush their recovery.

Day 45: Female Role Models

Over the past few days I’ve had some conversations with people about the importance of positive female role models.  Having a career in nursing has blessed me with quite a few female role models who have had a massive influence on me.

I am fortunate in this current role that there are amazing women who model behaviours and values that I share and aspire to.  Some are in senior roles, whilst others aren’t but still have a big influence on me and how I think.  I need to make more effort to tell them how important they are without patronising.

Day 44: Podcasting

Discussed the development of my podcast idea today.  I will be interviewing people about their views and ambition of quality for us.  I want to use this, amongst other tools, as part of our approach to stimulating debate across the organisation about what our collective ambition for quality is.

This will be part of my co-production approach to develop our quality ambition with the people we support, the people who work for us and other valued partners, such as our regulators and commissioners.

I have agreement from my first interviewee and am now working on the logistics.  Watch this space!

Day 43: How Do We Challenge The Unchallengeable?

I recall writing a previous blog post about stopping accepting the unacceptable.  This is along a similar vein regarding discrimination within the workplace (not that it’s OK anywhere else!).  As we strive to be more equitable, to reduce gaps between people identifying with different groups, we seek to be more diverse.

We need to ensure that in doing so we are inclusive of all, not exclusive to the minority.  People from minority groups can hold prejudice, and those who have been wronged in the past can do wrong to others, sometimes without even realising it.  Be inclusive, be kind, always.

Day 42: Psychology

So much of what we do at Turning Point is underpinned by evidence-based psychological interventions.  It is vital that how we work with the people we support to achieve their potential is rooted in good quality, evidence-based, therapies and services.

We have a central team of Psychologists as well as many spread throughout our services.  One of the fantastic things that I heard about on one of my recent virtual service visits is the way our Psychologists work hand in glove with Peer Support Workers.  This ensures that the people we support get a combination of evidence-based and experience-based therapy.

Day 41: International Optimists Day

Today is International Optimist Day.  I class myself as an optimist.  I strive to always see the positive in a situation and the best in people.  The advantage of this means I don’t catastrophise when things go wrong, I don’t jump to the worst-case scenario.

The disadvantage of being an optimist is the risk of missing the potential worst case happening and not being prepared physically or emotionally for this.

For me, the best combination is being an optimist AND being self-aware about this so that you can consciously plan for the worst, whilst believing that something better will happen.

Day 40: Partnerships For Mutual Benefit

What is a partnership? To me, this means that all ‘partners’ get something mutually beneficial out of the arrangement.  However, formal, or informal this relationship, to be called a partnership, the benefit to all must be equal or equitable.

It two parties are to enter a partnership, honesty and transparency at the outset are critical about what each wants to get.  There will inevitably have to be compromise as it is extremely rare for everyone to get everything that they want.

Successful partnerships regularly review whether partners are continuing to get what they want in an equitable way from it.

Day 39: Quality Support System

How do you know when things are going to go wrong? This is difficult, but if you have the right data and you use it in the right way, it is entirely possible to predict service failure before it happens.

I am developing a framework, which will use Machine Learning (a branch of Artificial Intelligence) to predict when things will go wrong with a service.

My aim is to be able to provide enhanced support to the service before the impact of things going wrong starts to have a detrimental effect on outcomes for users of the service and staff.