Supporting an NHS trust to develop a new strategic direction
We worked closely with the executive team and strategy and organisational development leads to help them develop a new sense of organisational purpose.
The challenge
After a number of challenging years, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust is on a rapid improvement curve.
Our work supporting their strategic development had to be carried out to tight timescales because the Trust was keen to tie the engagement to existing plans for the NHS’s birthday. We needed to work flexibly to help this busy acute Trust think strategically about the future despite ever-pressing operational demands.
Our approach
In the first phase, we worked closely with the Trust’s own improvement team to create ‘Purpose Week.’ This was an intense burst of staff engagement involving digital events and a large number of face to face conversations with people across the organisation.
We were able to explore, in depth, the many ways in which staff identified with their employer and made sense of their relationship with the Trust.
In the second phase, we supported a representative group of staff to lead a longer-term engagement themselves. The Better BHRUT group gathered insights from across the organisation using their own relationships and networks, with more than 900 conversations happening across the Trust, often on a one-to-one basis.
As these insights began to be shared, we supported the executive team to respond to what was being learned. Over a series of facilitated workshops, the executive were able to agree a collective leadership style for the next phases of strategy.
The impact
The engagement process collected more qualitative data on the views of staff on where the Trust needs to go, and how it needs to get there, than in any previous strategy process.
This helped the Trust, in the face of high strategic uncertainty at system level, to make a series of prioritisation decisions on what matters most to those they serve: prioritising the patient experience and the health of the organisation. The logic was that healthy organisations will make better choices and respond more flexibly to opportunities.
The eternal goal of better patient care is a focus that everyone can share. This radically simple choice was underpinned by data showing how hard it was for staff to move on from a challenging recent history, and at the same time how ready staff were to follow clear leadership in a positive direction.
Kaleidoscope was the ideal partner to help us rethink what strategy can and should be. They helped us to listen, understand, and agree what mattered most to us in an ever-changing context. We got huge value out of their support in a range of ways, from engaging with our staff through to bringing us together as an Executive team.
Ann Hepworth, Director of Strategy and Partnerships,
Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust
