People and culture – what comes next….

I am now past my fourth week, and I have had the opportunity to meet many wonderful colleagues and partners and I wish to thank you all for such a warm welcome.  I have connected and listened to colleagues in primary care, local authority, across senior leadership and Executive teams, and I have been struck by the desire to be and do something different and add value to our system.  I believe we have a great opportunity to turn up the dial on recognising, nurturing, and developing our people and I am confident that our new system People and Culture function will add value to you and our community.    

Progress in establishing and developing our new People and Culture function is something that I wish to keep you all up to date on.  Why? Because a function that is here to serve its people must remain connected, engaged, and importantly, actively listening to the needs and opportunities across our health and care system.

I will therefore aim to update colleagues and partners every 2-3 weeks with our progress and development.  This may range from outlining our immediate priorities, updating you on recruitment to key roles into the new function and sharing ways in which we would like you to be involved.  

By way of providing first insight into our progress, I wish to share two key things that I consistently remind myself and invite you all to be part of:

  1. Journey: An act of travelling from one place to another
  2. Deliberate: Done consciously and intentionally

We are all part of a journey where we will experience obstacles and solutions to safely navigate a way forward.  What is important in our journey is that we are deliberate in our chosen approach and actions for improvement.  I am sure many of you have heard the expression, fail to plan, plan to fail.  Establishing an effective function requires careful consideration, time to engage, listen and identify areas to prioritise based on need and importantly shared leadership and direction.  We will therefore ensure our journey to establishing our new function is one that is deliberate and works hard to ensure engagement and partnership working is at the heart of all that we do. 

So, what is happening right now and what am I involved in? 

  1. Recruitment to the role of our new Chief People Officer.  I will lead alongside and support our new Chief People Officer and we will optimise each other skills to successfully deliver our people and culture vision and objectives.  Interviews for the role are planned for late November.
  2. Identification of key roles within the new function and the transition/recruitment into these roles.  We are actively recruiting into those roles identified as critical in the first phase of our new function. This includes a system Lead role for EDI.  We hope to advertise this role in the next 2 weeks.   
  3. Securing support to develop a system OD Plan to be in place by April 2023.  Our OD Plan will outline areas of system priority, including: workforce leadership and talent development, strengthening equality and equity across our workforce, supporting teams in culture improvement and engagement and applying tools and ways for system objectives to be led well, communicated well and delivered with impact.  Widening participation is something that is at the forefront of my mind.   
  4. Produce a stocktake of work to date across the areas of People and Culture.  We now have a stock take of the enormity of work that has taken place across our system and we are now in the process of further refining this work and that which will be the responsibility of the system People and Culture function and that which is led, for example by Provider Collaborative.  This work will take some time and will also support our future governance and assurance processes.  We are making good process on this.  
  5. Consider the role of provider collaboratives and principle of a system focussed people and culture function.  We have started conversations with key leads utilising the stocktake information, national guidance and together we will define roles and responsibilities based on value, impact, and expertise.  We will keep you a breadth of this work.    

This is just a small insight into our progress, and I promise that we will keep you updated on a regular basis.  Equally and where appropriate, we will ask for your engagement and help towards our journey to establish a highly effective People and Culture function for all system partners and colleagues. 

I am very keen that we remain connected and engaged with you all and please do get in touch if you have any questions, comments, or feedback.  I will do my upmost to help and respond in a timely manner. 

Emma Challans-Rasool, Director of Organisational Development, Culture and Talent

Email; Emma.Challans@nhs.net

Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Joint Local Transformation Plan for Children and Young People’s Emotional and Mental Health 2016-2023

The September 2022 update for the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Joint Local Transformation Plan for Children and Young People’s Emotional Well-Being and Mental Health 2016-2023 is now available to download below. The aim of the local transformation plan is to explain progress to date and future priorities in relation to children and young people’s mental health. Please find attached here the approved Nottinghamshire County and Nottingham City Joint Local Transformation Plan which has been endorsed by the ICS Mental Health and Social Care Partnership Board. The Plan includes Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Local Authorities, and services commissioned by Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board.

Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care System – Newsletter October 22

“We’re coming to you” says GP to people with learning disabilities

Marking national Learning Disabilities Week, local GPs have announced a new service across Mansfield, Pleaseley, Warsop, Mansfield Woodhouse that finds people with learning disabilities to help improve their health and wellbeing.

Sarah Atkinson, a Specialist Learning Disability Nurse Practitioner of 25 years, has also been touring the area this week, talking with residents and GP practice staff about the care and support available for people with learning disabilities in local primary care services.

Sarah is in a brand-new role for local primary care services. As a Primary Care Network Learning Disabilities Nurse, her work is funded from the combined resources of 12 general practices covering the Mansfield population.

The service is championed by Dr Milind Tadpatrikar, GP at Roundwood Surgery for 20 years and the Clinical Director for the Rosewood (central Mansfield) area, supported by Dr James Mills, GP & Senior Partner at Orchard Medical Practice, Dr Khalid Butt, GP & Senior Partner at Oakwood Surgery and both Clinical Directors for Mansfield North Primary Care Network.

Dr Tadpatrikar explains: “GPs have been working hard to find and care for individuals that need urgent support. The impact of lockdowns, isolating and shielding has meant that health and wellbeing for this patient group has worsened.

“It doesn’t mean that staff in practices don’t care for this group. Many people with learning disabilities come and see us already. But the ones who don’t come, who can’t come, we want to know why. We need to know if they are missing out on services.

“We’re finding people in our communities and personalising the service. It’s about saying ‘Do you need us? We’re coming to you then.’ We’re bringing them into the main fold of the NHS care.”

Sarah will also be working closely with staff in local surgeries and community services, training, advocating and highlighting the needs of people with a learning disability. Dr Tadpatrikar explains: “With specialist knowledge from Sarah, more staff will be able to pick up on things that will make a difference, and that’s vital.”

Sarah isemployed by Primary Integrated Community Services (PICS), a local provider of NHS services on behalf of the Primary Care Networks, and is looking forward to celebrating 25 years as a qualified Learning Disability Nurse this September. She says:

“I have always had a special interest and passion for meeting the physical health needs of people with a Learning Disability, who we know experience health inequalities due to barriers accessing services; and sadly many die earlier than the general population from treatable and preventable conditions.

“There are no other Learning Disability Nurses employed to work directly in Primary Care in the East Midlands, so this role is very exciting.

“This role is literally my dream job! Being able to use all my years of experience to forge relationships with those individuals who have not engaged with their surgery before; and being able to undertake observations and their health check for the first time ever, for some, is quite special.

“I have also relished working with different professionals within the surgeries, including GPs, Clinical Pharmacists and Palliative Care nurses. Seeing reasonable adjustments being made to ensure patients’ needs are met is fantastic.”

A patient’s mother recently said about Sarah, “Sarah is a great help and has made a big difference to my daughter’s health, getting her the support she needs. Thank you”.

A manager of an assisted living home for people with learning disabilities said: “The empathy Sarah has shown has been heart-warming. It has been so lovely having you in our corner.”

Notes to the Editor

With the launch of partnerships across GP practices (called Primary Care Networks) in 2019, local GPs have been able to make decisions that tailor care to their local populations. Previously, patients could be referred to a service that covered a much larger area of over 200,000 people.

Images and captions:

Sarah Atkinson, LD PCN June 2022 – Advanced Nurse Practitioner and Primary Care Network Learning Disabilities Nurse.

Mansfield LD event – Sarah’s stall: Sarah Atkinson talking to residents and staff about supporting people with learning disabilities on June 20 2022, Mansfield Market Place as part of OneWalk. OneWalk 2022 — OneFest (oneconversation.co.uk)

Mansfield LD event – a photo of the crowd at the event above.

About PICS

Primary Integrated Community Services (PICS) provides quality health and social care for a population of over 1 million people NHS patients within the East Midlands and supports a federation of GPs.

Since 2013, PICS has grown to employ over 400 staff who provide a variety of community and out of hospital services, support five general practice surgeries and 11 Primary Care Networks. PICS are the largest provider of addition roles for Primary Care Networks in Nottinghamshire. It is independently accredited as an outstanding place to work with awards for safe, innovative and quality services.

Owned by over 130 local GPs, the company invests in primary and community care for the benefit of local communities and is not run to make a profit.