Caring Together Task and Finish Groups, Stakeholder Event and welcoming my successor to the CCG!

16^th May- 8^th July 2016

For this post I have decided to group together the last couple of months as I have been working on a large piece of work for the Transformation Team as part of the Caring Together Programme.

As part of the Caring Together Governance Structure there is a Caring Together Programme Board where members of the partner organisations including Chairs and Chief Executives meet to discuss how the programme is progressing on a monthly basis. It provides direction to the Programme Executive Group and multiple workstreams that sit beneath it. At the start of the new financial year the programme board decided that in order for the programme to move at the required pace, there needed to be areas of focus for the year ahead. It was decided that the priority areas of focus would be Maternity Care, Child Health and Wellbeing and Urgent and Emergency Care including Community Care. For each of these areas it was decided that there would be Task and Finish Groups where Care Professionals would be invited to attend to discuss the proposed options for each of the areas.

Also for the areas of focus it was decided that there would be a Stakeholder event where local stakeholders including public and patient representatives would be invited to attend to discuss the proposed options. As local stakeholders have been involved in the Caring Together Programme from the start it was important to ensure that they were included in the working up of these proposed options.

I was asked by the Transformation Team to coordinate and take a lead on all of the Task and Finish Groups and Stakeholder events. For each of the priority areas there were two task and finish groups and a stakeholder event. For each of these events I had to work with the leads of each of the priority areas to put together lists of attendees with contact details so that when it came the time to send out invitations we had the list already put together. Once suitable dates were identified for the events I liaised with venues and other members of staff at the CCG to book suitable venues for the Task and Finish Groups. After this had been identified I then sent out invitations to the list of attendees that had already been generated. I was then in charge of monitoring attendance at the events by taking note of the responses that were received in a spreadsheet that I created. It was an easy way of monitoring attendance and being able to tell the priority area leads how many people were attending when we had our weekly catch up meetings. Also I helped to put together agendas and any papers that had to go out to attendees prior to the meetings. As some of the meetings were held in the evening I also had to arrange food and refreshments for these. Finally I attended each of the events to support the leads of the task and finish groups with anything they required.

Once all the events had taken place I was involved in collating the feedback that was collected by the facilitators and scribes, to ensure that this could be included in feedback going forward to the Caring Together Programme Board. This guaranteed that the views of both the care professionals and the stakeholders would be represented in the options going forward.

Finally at the beginning of July we welcomed my successor Robbie Nolan to the CCG who will be taking on the role of Transformation Programme Support Officer for 2016/17. There will be a handover period of a month so that he is fully briefed on what the role entails and the pieces of work I have been involved in this year. I really hope he enjoys the role and being a member of the CCG team as much as I have done and takes away as much as I have done from my placement year.

Introduction to Quality Improvement and Staff Away Day

4^th April-13^th May 2016

Over the past month I have been very busy so I do apologise in advance for the lack of blog posts. The time is just flying by and I cannot believe I only have just over two months left at the CCG.

Throughout my placement I have been heavily involved with working alongside the Transformation team on the Caring Together Programme. This month in particular I have been helping to assist with the full implementation of the revised Governance Structure. I have helped to coordinate the first meeting of the Patient and Public Advisory Group. This group is made up of representatives who live in Eastern Cheshire and have a keen interest in shaping the healthcare going forward for the population. It was a really interesting meeting to attend to be able to hear and see how passionate the group were to help shape the local health and social care services for Eastern Cheshire.

I have also been offered the opportunity to enrol on a Quality Improvement programme through the Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA) which is running through May and June. I attended the first of these sessions two weeks ago and found it very worthwhile. I was introduced to the theory and concepts around quality improvement including defining what is quality and what it means to a consumer, employee etc.  As part of the requirements for the course I have to identify a project that I would like to work through and apply the theory learnt in these sessions. Within the first session we were looking at identifying the aim of our projects and mapping the projects out using different mapping processes including Fishbone Diagrams and Driver Diagrams. Participating in this course at this time is really helpful for me as it eases me back into studying again and learning new concepts in preparation for September when I go back to university and the new topic areas I will be studying.

At the beginning of the month the CCG held an away day for all of its staff members. As the event was held on May 4^th, the day had a Star Wars Theme running throughout it. The day was aimed towards team building, celebrating the successes over the past year and looking forward to the year ahead. There was also a Star Wars themed ‘Bake Off’ which many staff participated in and there were some very creative and tasty bakes presented. I was also involved in some of the coordination of the event from creating delegates badges in the Star Wars theme to helping to create collateral for event. 

Finally I attended the latest QIPP (Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention) workshop. At these sessions several project mandates are presented to a select group of people from both CCG staff to patient representatives to review and score the projects against a prioritisation matrix that has been developed. These sessions are all designed around looking at ways that the CCG can make efficiency savings within the increasing financial pressure the NHS is under. 

Presenting at Staff Briefing and The CATCH app

29^th February- 1^st April 2016   

Once again this month I am getting really bad at keeping up to date with my blog posts! It has again been another busy month for me at the CCG with me being involved in a wide variety of projects and tasks.

At the start of the month I presented at the monthly staff briefing which was quite a nerve racking experience for me! After having my monthly reviews with my manager it became evident to both of us that I needed to develop my confidence when presenting to large audiences. It was decided that myself and the other placement student at the CCG, Katie Hall, would make and deliver a presentation on ‘Our Experience so Far’ at the CCG which would be presented at a staff briefing. I was very reluctant at first to do this presentation as it is something that I have never been completely comfortable with. However, as the presentation was relating to a topic that I knew in great detail as it was my experience at the CCG, I was slightly more confident when going into the presentation. Once it came to the time to present I did it to the best of my ability and I received lots of positive feedback from other members of staff, which reassured me that I did a good job!

Also this month I was asked to be involved in an exciting project called CATCH which stands for ‘Common Approach To Children’s Health’. This project is particularly focusing on children aged 0-4 years old and their parents. After some research that has been carried out by Public Health into A&E attendances for children and young adults in Eastern Cheshire, it was discovered that there is a large number of attendees to A&E between the ages of 0-4 years. Also a considerable proportion of these attendees were sent away from A&E only with advice and this was causing the figures for A&E attendances to be quite high amongst this age range. This prompted the CCG to look into this further and ways in which they can look at reducing these figures. They came up with the idea of producing an app which would promote self-care amongst parents who have children within this age bracket.  I am working with the Benefits Realisation Manager at the CCG to identify the benefits that the app could produce.

However the app was only allocated funding for a period of 6 months after it was launched. It was decided that the full potential of the app cannot be reached during this short time period, so additional funding would be required in order to see the true benefits of the app for the local population.  So this month I have been working with Katie Hall, to produce a project mandate for the further investment that is required from the CCG to ensure that the app is a success in the long term.

Finally it was time for me to select which modules I would like to study in my final year at university. As the degree I am studying is Business Studies it means that the first 2 years of study has been quite varied which has allowed me to have exposure to lots of different aspects of business. However in the final year of my degree, I have the opportunity to specialise in the certain areas of business which I enjoy and also feel are my strengths.  I have decided to choose both modules relating to Human Resources and Finance as I feel that these are my strongest areas of business through studying them at university and also having experience whilst on placement. 

Passing PRINCE 2 and Recruiting Student Placements!

1^st- 26^th February 2016

Firstly, I would like to apologise for not uploading a post throughout the month of February! This month has been an extremely busy for me at the CCG so unfortunately I have not had time to write up a post.

An exciting piece of news from this month is that I have passed the PRINCE2 Project Management Qualification at Foundation Level. I am really proud of myself for passing this course! By completing the course it will help me in my role at the CCG working with the Programme Management Office and also in my final year at university and in my future career.

Something that I have been heavily involved with this month, and has been ongoing for the past couple months, is the recruitment process for the next student placement positions. The interviews took place this month for both my role, Transformation Programme Support Officer and also the other student placement role within the CCG, Commissioning & Quality Officer. Katie, the current Commissioning & Quality Officer and I took on the responsibility of the recruitment process ourselves and it has been really valuable HR experience for us. As part of the preparation for the interviews we put together both the presentation questions that we asked candidates to produce prior to the interview and also the questions that we were going to ask at the interview. Also we put together an interview scoring matrix to ensure that we were scoring all of the candidates fairly. The standard of candidates we interviewed this year was very high which made it very difficult to come to a decision on which candidate we felt would be most suited to the position. However we have now come to a decision on who we feel would be most suited to take on the student placement roles in the summer this year.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been assisting with the creation and updating of the revised Caring Together Programme Plan. As the governance structure has recently been revised within the programme to reflect the need for a faster paced implementation and the collaborative working of all the partners. I was working on adding in the implementation/programme plan of some of the workstreams that are a part of the programme onto the entire programme plan. Also I was numbering each of the tasks in a logical order from the main tasks through to the sub tasks.        

For many months now I have been supporting the Transformation Project Manager on the Integrated Diabetes Care Project. I have been involved in the project since I started at the CCG and it is currently in the procurement stage. At this stage of the project I have been helping the project lead with the organisation of the evaluation meetings for the Integrated Diabetes Care bids. This has involved me liaising with internal staff at the CCG and also external staff from other organisations and patient and public representatives.

Cultural Transformation!

18^th-29^th January 2016

Over the past few weeks I have been involved in a piece of work which is looking at Cultural Transformation. Cultural Transformation is looking at transforming the way the local health and social care system works and turning it into a more integrated system and adopting the Eastern Cheshire Integrated Care Programme, Caring Together.

It is all about educating both the workforce and the population of the Eastern Cheshire Health and Social Care Organisations to adopt a new way of working and also adjusting to a new way to receive care.

I have been looking at reports that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have published for the local providers such as East Cheshire Trust and The Cheshire and Wirral Partnership. When reading through these reports I have been identifying areas where Cultural Transformation is working effectively within organisations and in some organisations that it is maybe not working so well in. I am now going to be pulling a document together that presents all of my findings.     

I have also been working on a piece of work that is looking at the ECCCG Five Year Strategic Plan which sets out seven ambitions that the CCG is aiming to achieve over a five year period from 2014/2015 to 2018/2019. Also along with this NHS England puts together their CCG Outcomes Indicator Set which contains five outcomes and their corresponding indicators that CCG’s should be achieving through their Five Year Strategic Plan. I have been tasked with the job of pulling together a document that displays both ECCCG’s seven ambitions and also the CCG Outcomes Indicator Set and identifying which of the ambitions are aligning with and meeting the national standards.

Also I have been working with the PMO again over the last couple of weeks and I have been tasked with the job of putting together a diagram that displays the reporting structure within the CCG and also including the transformation programme, Caring Together. As there is so much work being undertaken at any one time at the CCG and things can change on a regular basis, it has lead the PMO to decide to pull together this document to display the current reporting structure within the organisation.  

HR experience!

4^th-15^th January 2016

I hope that you all had a great Christmas and New Year and enjoyed your celebrations!

After having a lovely break myself over the Christmas period catching up with family and friends it was time once again to get back to the CCG. I was very busy at the beginning of the week catching up on things that I had missed over my time away and also getting up to date on all those emails in my inbox!

This week I have been involved in the process of shortlisting candidates for the next student placement role which is due to start in the summer. Myself along with Katie Hall, the placement student within the business team, came together to start to decide which candidates we felt would be suitable to take through to the next stage of the process. It was a real insight for me to see what it is like on the other side of the recruitment process as this time last year I was nervously waiting to see if I would go through to the interview stage. Being a part of the process has really helped me to appreciate how long each of the different stages of the recruitment process take and also what employers are looking for when going through the shortlisting process. I really think that in the future this will be something I may pursuit and look at taking a HR module as one of my final year modules at university.

Also since coming back after the Christmas break I have been more heavily involved with the day-to-day tasks and duties of the Project Management Office (PMO).  It is really beneficial for me to be involved heavily in another team at the CCG as it is broadening my knowledge and giving me exposure to different areas of the business. The skills and knowledge that I learn will be transferable to both when I go back to university and work on projects and also in my future career.

It was also time this week to get back into my PRINCE 2 revision as my exam is not too far away now. I have really enjoyed learning a new concept and all of the different elements that are involved within it. Also by completing the course at this time helps me massively as I am taking on more responsibilities within the PMO going forward.

Commissioning Intentions and Integrated Diabetes Care

30^th November-11^th December

This week I have been involved with the organisation and the facilitation of the Commissioning Intentions workshop. A select number of attendees were invited to attend the event from Eastern Cheshire CCG staff to patient representatives. Prior to the workshop a set of project mandates were put together and during the workshop a prioritisation matrix was used to score each of the projects on different areas both financial and non-financial.

The scores for each of the projects were then ranked in order from highest to lowest and the ones with the highest scores are taken forward and considered as a priority for the CCG for the next financial year.

Also over the past couple of weeks I have been working closely with the project lead for the Integrated Diabetes Care as I have been writing up a post event report for a Networking event that was held last month where providers and suppliers of Diabetes Care across the North West attended. The aim of this event was for the attendees to network and identify how partnerships between their organisations can be formed to help to deliver the Eastern Cheshire Integrated Diabetes Care Service Specification.  The report I am currently assisting to write will provide an outline to the event and set out the next steps for the future of the project as it goes into the procurement stage. Once this report has been written it will be circulated to all of the attendees to read along with the updated service specification.   

In addition I attended another Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA) event around Outcomes Based Commissioning. This was a follow up event from a previous one I attended. This session was designed in order to try to develop an Outcomes Based Commissioning approach that all CCG’s could adopt. We also came up with specific outcomes for diabetes and mental health. This session was extremely useful as the group of attendees were smaller than previous events and therefore more in-depth discussions took place. As a result we were able to put a process together as a group that any CCG could adopt and tailor it to any specific condition.