Innovation

NHS Mediocrity

Mediocrity

The NHS is mediocre, Jeremy Hunt will say today, and show that it costs lives.  But he's not the first person.

In 2003, Kate Silvester (Lean Thinking Hawk for the NHS) told us that "at any one time, 30% of waste and inefficiency can be taken out of the health service".  She was right, but it needs some context.

1) Dedication of Staff

A moral dimension to consulting

Moral dilemmaIt's easy to assume that all of our decisions are purely rational, but they rarely if ever are rational.  And they always have consequences for others, usually consequences that we think we could not have predicted.

But consultants are not here to make decisions, only to provide information and advice.  Does this somehow absolve us from a moral responsibility?

 

Creating Organisational Capacity for Benefits Management

APM_SIG_Thought_2.JPGAPM (Association for Project Management) released its second Thought Leadership Guide on Benefits Management.
It's entitled Delivering benefits from investment in change - creating organisational capability, and it describes how to make the next step from Strategy into capability.

This guide is the second of a series of four, pitched at a strategic level, on how to make Benefits Management actually work.  And its authors embody many decades of experience between them.

Developing a CQUIN Commissioner-Provider Contract

North of Tyne PCTs (the management team for two PCTs in NHS North East) needed a contract for the Addictions service developed in line with the new model contract 2009, in place before end of March 2009 (ie before the start of the new financial year). Time was limited, so they engaged Minney.org to provide extra resource.

Making time to make a change

"Edward Bear Coming Down StairsHere comes Edward Bear now, down the stairs behind Christopher Robin. Bump! Bump! Bump! on the back of his head. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming down stairs. He is sure that there must be a better way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment to think of it.“[1]
 

Treasury decides not to bail out charities who lost in Icelandic Banks

icelandic_money_up_in_flames.jpgWould it be unfair to suggest a certain naivety? Since BCCI, and probably before then, the saying "if it looks too good to be true . . ." has marked a common-sense approach to money. Putting it simply, charities should steward the money in their trust, not try to profit from it. What has happened here could happen to anyone.

More for Less - NHS Growth Money is coming to an end

"All bets are off" as David Nicholson tells NHS to prepare for cuts (HSJ 4June - updated Pulse 27Nov09). Massive investment over the last 8 years hasn't improved productivity (HSJ 28May). PCTs aren't making use of the wealth of experience and enthusiasm available through Practice Based Commissioning (PBC) (Primary Care Today May/June 09). The same old ideas are put forward as the solutions to all our problems - more care out of hospital, more innovation, more work led by nurses, more Health centres, more salaried GPs. Why haven't these 'obvious' solutions delivered?

Commissioning Innovation

I recently co-hosted a workshop bringing commissioners (mostly local authority and health) together with third sector (charity) providers to help each side understand how the other works.
The results were explosive!
The workshop demonstrated just how much . . . . .

Urgent Care Limited - Social Enterprise

Urgent Care Social enterpriseUrgent Care Ltd is a social enterprise to bring together the valuable skills of Emergency Care Practitioners and Nurse Practitioners for first contact, and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) need to get responsive clinicians providing care at the point of need.

Innovation - Case for Investment in Social Care

Skills for Care (SfC) New Types of Worker programme wanted to help third sector organisations make the leap from using development grants to sustainable funding, in other words for commissioners to buy the services they provided at a price which enabled them to continue to provide the service.

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Judicial System - If I were running the country

Scales of JusticeHow do we make the courts run more smoothly?  Cases take too long and are too expensive, mired in endless argument and counter-argument that are the hallmarks of our adversarial system.  What if we were to set time limits?  Would that work?

Well, let's try it.  Each side presents their best evidence, and if magistrate or jury isn't convinced, they can ask for more time from each side.  If it works for Cricket, that most venerable of British institutions, it should work for courts.  Who knows, they may even become spectator sports?

If I were running the country - encouraging business

Minimum wage

Fantasy government - what would I do if I were in government?  Well how about reduce corporation tax, increase income tax, increase minimum wage and invest in job creation in the regions?  That would be a good start - create jobs where there are workers, then make sure that the right amount of tax is collected and at the same time reduce spend on benefits which are only used to increase profits of selfish organisations.

Would it work?  Have your say.

PwC Report on the Current State of Project Management

PwC Project Management ReportPwC found that successful companies are getting more mature in their project management ability.  This raises the game – successful companies have lower costs from fewer failed projects, and less successful companies have to work harder to catch up.  There are some important lessons to take this report for everyone – Read more…

Joy instead of tedium

The Office

Every office has them - the tasks that have to be done that nobody likes doing.  Whether it's the audit, the wages, standard letters, whatever it is - someone has to do it and it feels like a waste of time and money.

Why should you care?

So you employ somebody, so why do you care about how tedious the task is? Well they are costing money, to do something that could be done far more effectively.

Learning from the Past

Evidence for service improvement

Many public service changes have little basis in evidence. Their success (or otherwise) does not appear to depend on how 'good' the policy itself is, but rather on how it has been implemented. This relies on staff attitudes and relationships. My research falls into a number of broad categories: finding out what is currently happening; what people think about it; and what people think it will mean.

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