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We are doing so many meetings and events digitally now, Lydia Paris reflects on how we have made them as accessible as possible. Here she shares her 10 top tips for an engaging and inclusive digital event.

Six months ago, we brought together more than 100 people from across health and care and beyond to take part in our Super Melting Pot conference. Over two days, we challenged participants to see how the world looks from outside healthcare and to talk about what we don’t talk enough about. 

This week I returned to clinical work. Its been more than 100 days since I last saw a patient in real life. More than three months since I touched a patient, delivered their baby or looked to see if they had cancer.

The NHS and I have grown up together, changed together, matured together. I love the NHS, but let’s face it – just because you love something, or someone, doesn’t mean you can’t feel immensely irritated with it at times.

At Kaleidoscope improving health and care is why we’re here. Yet when we thought about how to join the chorus of thanksgiving for the NHS’s 72nd birthday, we had to pause. It might seem hard - even heretical - to stop and think, but our gratitude comes with some caveats.

How do you find out you’re wrong? No, not a rhetorical question. Take a moment, how do you? It is not easy. We’re programmed to want our views to be confirmed. Which is a shame, as there’s no shortage of evidence about the benefits of opening up to different views.

Work is a fact of life for most of us. But if lockdown feels a bit like ‘living at work’ then perhaps it’s time for us to examine the idea that work should be a more joyful and flexible part of our lives.

Strategy is rarely a word that inspires enthusiasm. It should. But too often it’s an arduous process to produce a long list of hopes and aspirations, with no plan for action or evaluation. The result is something that no one looks at or believes in. What is going wrong?

Lockdown might have allowed us to see into each other's homes. But, this Carers Week, Charmian Walker-Smith says we still have a long way to go if we are really going to make caring visible.