July 2022

Leadership for Personalised Care Newsletter

Hello to our lovely network of leaders,

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Welcome to our summer newsletter, celebrating all things Leadership for Personalised Care!

We have a jam-packed issue for you with lots of highlights from the past few months, including our first face-to-face national programme since 2020 and the exciting launch of cohort 4 of our regional programmes (see below - applications open now).

We will also be introducing our new leadership programme for anyone working in or helping to grow new roles in primary care, including social prescribers, care coordinators and health and wellbeing coaches, currently being piloted in the south east region.

This issue will also include a warm welcome to two new team members, a guest piece from John Evans OBE on Disability Pride Month and finally my response to some recent reports on the future for leadership development in health and care, and the part we hope to play in responding to this call to action. 

Go well,

Leadership for Empowered Communities and Personalised Care 

She says: “I firmly believe this course is giving me the skills, knowledge and confidence to take that transformative agenda forward in a meaningful way and really bring about change to collaborate with people who use our service and crucially to better engage with people that don’t."

“I’m really passionate about making sure co-production is at the heart of what we do to deliver things in a way that are meaningful for the population and different parts of the community."

“Like many others, I believe I will go away from this course with renewed energy and sense of purpose to bring about genuine change across the system to better meet the needs of people who access our vital services."

Apply now for our regional programme

Following the success of previous cohorts we are pleased to announce that recruitment is now open for this year’s Leadership for Personalised Care programme in your region. So far, over 700 leaders have graduated from the programme, which takes place virtually over three days, starting in September 2022.   

The Leadership for Personalised Care programme is designed for groups of two or more from one place who want to learn new skills and work together to drive forward personalised care.  The programme will help you focus on what really matters and develop your ability to lead change and influence others to make a positive difference. 

A programme will run in each region and will include:  

· What personalised care is and what it means in your local context  

· Building skills in relating and storytelling  

· Collaborative leadership, host leadership and leading in complex systems  

· Your collective leadership strengths and how to bring others on board  

· Making co-production happen and working with local communities  

· Developing your local plan for change.  

The applications will close on Tuesday 16th August, you can download the flyers below and click here for the application form. Please apply as soon as possible and email the team at england.leadership@nhs.net with any questions.  

Development opportunity for new roles in primary care  

We are pleased to announce a new leadership development programme to support people working in or helping to grow personalised care roles and supports in primary care, including social prescribing link workers, care coordinators and health and well-being coaches.

The programme is open to people in the south east region who are working in the NHS, councils or the voluntary sector and is a partnership offer brought to you by the Leadership for Personalised Care team, the NHS Leadership Academy (South East) and Altogether Better. 

Applications close on Monday 5th September and are open to those working in the South East region only.

To apply for a place on the programme please email:  england.leadership@nhs.net

For further information please see our flyer linked below.

Here’s one we made earlier!

Thoughts on the Messenger Review and other recent reports on leadership development.

In the past few months, we've seen several reports highlighting the importance of leaders and leadership development in creating positive change and transformation for local communities and health and social care services. 

It is clear the programmes that the Leadership for Personalised Care team provide, described by the New Economics Foundation as “pioneering”, with their emphasis on co-production and personalisation, have a vital role to play in developing that best practice.

The Messenger review, published by government in June 2022, recognised the importance of ‘first-rate’ leadership in the NHS but found, “the development of quality leadership and management is not adequately embedded or institutionalised in our health and care communities.” 

As well as suggestions for new leadership pathways and a crucial focus on equality, diversity and inclusion, it stresses the need to develop collaborative leadership behaviours and joined-up leadership development across health and social care sectors.

.The Fuller report in primary care, from NHS England in May 2022, called for integrated teams in every neighbourhood to take shared ownership for improving population health and wellbeing in a culture of collaboration. 

The best primary care networks were described as those that work in partnership with their people, communities and local authority colleagues, focussing on genuine co-production and personalisation of care. 

The report says, “The key ingredient to delivering this way of working is leadership,” and calls for investment in local leaders and the promotion of integrated working.

From another part of government, the Integration White Paper from February 2022 called for a bringing together of NHS and local government to deliver joined-up, personalised services with people’s wishes and wellbeing at the heart of every place. 

It also proposes a national joined-up approach to leadership development across health and care, addressing the skills required to deliver effective system transformation and local partnerships.

We are at the service of colleagues across the sector to respond to this call to arms and to help drive these much-needed improvements - watch this space!

Catherine Wilton - Programme Founder and Director 

Making an Impact!

Leadership for Personalised Care is this year in its 10^th year! Along the journey we have continually sought to understand the impact the programme has made. We know from what participants tell us that they leave with greater knowledge, skills and confidence in their role as a leader in creating health and care systems that focus on what really matters to people and communities.

In order to understand the long-term impact of the programmes, the Institute of Employment Studies has been commissioned to undertake an independent evaluation of all our work so far. 

This will involve a survey of all our alumni and some ‘deep dive’ case studies into a small number of local systems that will tell the story of leading change in personalisation. 

Alumni will receive an invitation from IES to participate in the survey in the next few days.  If you don’t receive an invitation this may be because we don’t have your up-to-date contact details. If this is the case please let us know at england.leadership@nhs.net.

For further information about the evaluation, please contact Heather.simpson14@nhs.net.

Heather Simpson - Head of Programmes

John, who was inspired by that pioneering work, led by Ed Roberts, has been awarded an OBE for his work in establishing a number of key disability organisations locally, nationally and at European level, specialising in personalisation and direct payments.

“The establishment of that first centre had a transformational effect that inspired a movement for change in the UK and around the world that improved the personal health and wellbeing of disabled people and the quality of lives,” he said.

Disability Pride month originated in the USA to coincide with important civil rights law that prohibited discrimination against disabled people and has become an annual awareness month worldwide, shining the light on physical and learning disabilities as well as mental health conditions.

John said that while progress was to be welcomed much was still to be done to improve services and the rights of the disabled.

“There are currently a great deal of challenges with prolonged austerity and its impacts on local council budgets as well as the shockwaves of the Covid pandemic, but I remain passionate about the role of co-production, which is about sharing power and leadership in the delivery of good services,” he said.

John Evans OBE, Programme Tutor 

We are delighted to introduce two new members of the Leadership for Personalised Care team……

Opportunity for connection with our network! 

For every newsletter, we would like to include content from YOU, our network, alumni and participants. For example. we would love to include stories of how our programmes have helped you and the change you’re making on the ground to benefit people and communities.

Please get in touch with us on leadershipforpersonalisedcare@gmail.com if you want to share something with us for the next newsletter, or fill in this form and we will be in touch.

And this brings our newsletter to a close! We look forward to sharing our plans for the year with you soon, and connecting with you in our upcoming programmes and workshops.

In the meantime, please stay connected through our socials below.

Until next time,

The Leadership for Personalised Care Team