I am soon to be moving on from my role in screening to ‘at home and communities’. Still in the NHS, still doing service design, but a new area.
The reasons for this are numerous and varied, but after some reflection I was adament that I didn’t want to leave the NHS, and so an internal move was the right thing to pursue. It took a few things to fall into place and a few people to advocate for me for the move to happen and I’m grateful to them for it.
I’m really excited about the move. At home and communities based care is historically somewhat underfunded, as money is limited and tends to go towards acute care, such as hospitals. That could be fair enough. But one in five NHS staff works in the community, delivering services ranging from providing talking therapies and autism support, for example, to how blood is taken, physio appointments are managed, or wounds are cared for — all once you’re back at home.
The problems are interesting, providers are open and engaging, and I think there’s real impact to be had.
More than that though, the culture in the team seems to be great. I met this week with one of our directors — who’s been instrumental in setting a lot of this work up — and he couldn’t have been nicer.
When I told him about my experience, he seemed genuinely enthused about it. He said it was great to have me on board and that he was looking forward to working with me.
And what struck me about that was that he didn’t need to say any of it. The fact he did said a lot to me about the culture from the top, and it’s exciting to me to be welcomed like that. It’s a great way to start, and has set the tone for the first few weeks, particularly as everyone else I’ve spoken to has been seemingly cut from a similar cloth.
Will there be issues with the work at some point? No doubt. But I feel positive that when you’ve got a good group of people who value each other and clearly know what they’re doing, you’ll do some good work.
I would like to get into some sort of rhythm with weeknotes, but I think it works best for me when I’m not strict about the ‘week’ bit. Could be once a month, could be twice a day. We’ll see.
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Meanwhile, next week I am off to SDinGov. I haven’t been since 2019, despite wanting to go every year… Magdalena and I had talk accepted this time so no excuses. It’s fun doing a talk like this with someone else, especially someone as knowledgeable and passionate as Magdalena, and it’s been busy trying to knock it into shape this week.
We did a dry run in front of some lovely colleagues who were frank with their points and we have been tightening up our narrative ever since — we’re grateful for their time and views.
Regardless of our talk, I’m pumped to see other people’s talks, meet some fellow service designers, and generally get into a new headspace. The fact I will come back to start in a new programme is a huge bonus.