Proud2bOps NHS Executive Summit

Michael Duffin – Director of Client Success shares his take on a pivotal event.

The NHS Executive Strategy Summit served as a canvas for the unfolding narrative of operational strategy and innovation-led transformation in the health and care system. Over 200+ senior operational managers, national, and system leaders came together from across England to discuss healthcare delivery and share best practice, in what was the largest event to date for the Proud2bOps network.

Here are some bullet points to save reading the entire blog:

It will take bravery, agency, and adopting a growth mindset if operations and strategy makers are going to address key challenges in the NHS.
There is a distinct need in Ops to be agile and adaptable to the changing needs of your environment/ organisation (see Choluteca Bridge reference).
The Inicio Health roundtable surfaced key enablers to technology adoption, including being bold in decisions and risk appetite, and empowering patients with choice and information on access, navigation of care, and potential alternatives.
AI and digital solutions, like FlightDeck, can be a valid solution to support workforce, patient safety and financial challenges in the NHS.

As a sponsor of this national event, inicio health were delighted to be a part of these discussions, and for the opportunity to showcase our role as trusted partners in this space, providing clinically-led, patient-centred digital services to enable efficiencies in workflow, workforce, and enhancing patient safety.

The day kicked off with some incredible key note speakers, including Chair of National Improvement Board, David Fillingham (CBE), and Claire Murdoch (CBE), Chief Executive and National Director for Mental Health. There was sincere acknowledgement and appreciation to the efforts and resilience demonstrated by everyone in the packed out Ball Room at the Grosvenor Hotel, for their work not just supporting winter pressures, but for the tireless work year round.

There were calls to action for bravery, agency, and adopting a growth mindset when working towards addressing the key challenges that the NHS is currently facing. “We must combine the small steps of continuous improvement with the big leaps of radical transformation”, David Fillingham (CBE).

Ever heard of Choluteca Bridge in Honduras? The bridge was built to be robust and to stand the test of time in the 1930’s, but when it survived Hurricane Mitch in 1998, due to river changing its course the bridge still stood but its function became meaningless. This was a powerful anecdote presented by Claire Murdoch (CBE), as to the need to be adaptable and demonstrate agility as the NHS continues to serve as a bedrock for health for its citizens, but the NHS has and will continue to go through change that will make it unrecognisable from the NHS of 75 years ago.

Following a number panels and presentations in the main room (and a spot tea and coffee for a caffeine injection), inicio health had the opportunity to host a roundtable session (the table was indeed round), exploring how AI and digital tools can be integrated to address key challenges, enhance patient flow, and facilitate data-driven decisions, all within the unique context of the NHS.

Hosted by co-founder, and Chief Clinical Officer Amanda Sparkes, and with excellent engagement from all our delegates, we left no stone unturned, diving into some of the key considerations to adopting AI, embarking on digital transformation projects, and meeting workforce and patient flow challenges head on. We also had the opportunity to showcase our novel clinical product, FlightDeck. FlightDeck uses intelligent, ai-driven, voice-enabled data capture to provide transcripts, reporting including sentiment analysis, and real-time dashboards to improve patient safety, enhance compliance to best practice, and save Trusts money.

If FlightDeck was running during our roundtable discussion, it would have picked up on the sentiment in the room, where colleagues were cautiously optimistic about the potential to innovate in their organisations, and were attuned to the challenges and need for cultivating relationships, for open and transparent dialogue with all involved, and a culture where data and impact are the pillar that decisions are based upon.

Key themes of our discussion included:

Focus on relationships, both within the system, and with industry.
Be bold in our decisions and risk appetite.
Engage people, public, and staff before taking decisions.
Our messaging to the public needs to be compelling.
Empower patients with choice and information on access, navigation of care, and alternatives.
UX & UI must be right.
We must use APIs to avoid supplier lock in and data silos

We also covered some of the many known barriers to doing things differently, with most of our delegates having ‘walked the walk’ and wearing the scars of change with a sense of pride. We surfaced issues like organisational factors, availability of data, and WIIFM (“What’s in it for me”), including:

Initial poor experiences due to poor processes
Issues with trust (patients or staff)
Increased workload for digital capture
Fear of technology (or change)
Adequate preparation, process, and planning
Low digital (and reading) literacy
Digital poverty
Understanding of needs and the engagement required for patient/ family/ carer/ staff
Challenges related to information governance (IG)

The day rounded off in the main room with afternoon tea, and a final address from Angela Hillary (CBE), and a powerful message to everyone in the Proud2bOps network of the importance of events like NESS 2023. These serve to energise colleagues, provide room for reflection, and an opportunity to celebrate achievements, the need for which shouldn’t be understated. At inicio Health, we are proud2be part of this community, and excited about the role we can play in supporting our amazing NHS workforce, and look forward to being an active part of this community as it continues to go from strength to strength.

Thanks for reading!