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Of all the times to take on a new job in the NHS, just before Christmas is an interesting choice in any year. Just before Christmas when a novel coronavirus is beginning to take hold in China and before the most unprecedented challenge to face the NHS since its inception could be considered unfortunate…

I’ve never considered myself much of a ‘health person’. Don’t get me wrong, I care deeply about health. But now I am moving out of the sector (for now at least), I want to reflect on what I’ve learned during my time here.

Want to spend a long time training for a job? Become a doctor - or an architect. I became a doctor, yet my job recently has involved quite a lot to do with buildings, and talking about buildings. So, what's that got to do with the day job?

Collaboration. Everyone agrees it’s a good thing. But evaluating it needs care and consideration. It’s more than data, it’s about people and long term shifts in culture and working practices.

Covid-19 has thrown us into the arms of new digital technology like little else before. Video conferencing for appointments is no longer a surprise, and the fact that Covid-19 tests (where available) should be booked online seems completely natural. While no one can deny that the rate of change in digital healthcare has increased, how much of this change is likely to remain with us long term?

At Kaleidoscope we used to run some pretty amazing face to face events, if we don’t say so ourselves. More recently, we’ve been running some pretty amazing digital ones instead. As things have begun to open up again, we've been asked to organise events once again *pause for dramatic impact* in person.

World Patient Safety Day is marked on 17 September. The theme this year is health worker safety: a priority for patient safety. For Suzette Woodward,  improving patient safety is about focusing on the culture, conditions and values that enable people to work safely.  

There wasn't much a hospital could have done for William Wallace in the end. Yet the irony of having an executioner's yard standing just outside St Bartholomew's (priory then, NHS Trust now) might not have been lost on the crowds who came to watch him meet a grisly demise.

When did I last listen to an argument and say to myself, “Good point. I hadn’t really thought of that”? As views become increasingly polarised, entrenched and echoed, there is a real need to hear fresh and different perspectives. Kaleidoscope is helping to make that happen.

If the future is collaboration, where are we now, and how do we bridge the gap? If we’re genuine about the high aspirations we have for primary care networks, integrated care systems, etc, do we know how big a challenge that is?