North Cumbria Integrated Care
Leading for Quality Care Leadership Programme
Background
North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust commissioned Prospect to co-design and co-deliver a leadership programme aimed at staff in leadership roles and aspiring leaders who have already undertaken some leadership development and wanted to take this further.
The leadership programme aimed to develop and gain:
Greater insight into 'self as a leader' and confidence to support sustaining these behaviours
Greater insight into the organisation and their leadership part to play in improving quality and effectiveness for patients and their teams
Understanding and approaches in building commitment and developing collaborative teams within and across boundaries
Insight into the qualities, skills and knowledge as a leader to lead others through change across teams, the organisation and wider system
Activity
Over a three year timeline Prospect was commissioned to deliver 8 cohorts to approximately 150 staff. The programme consisted of 4 days of masterclasses
Day 1: Introduction to the programme, the Healthcare Leadership Model and the personal application of this, insights into individual styles and preferences using the Jigsaw Discovery tool and learning styles analysis, to build relationships and readiness for the remainder of the programme
Day 2: Self as Leader:- an exploration of different leadership styles and theories and the application and reflection upon these theories in developing leadership style, and insight as to the style and behaviours required to lead teams, services, and across organisational boundaries
Day 3: Leading others: gaining insight into high performing teams, team dynamics and formation of teams. Application of the research to their own teams and how to lead effective teams for quality care
Day 4: Leading system and transformational change:- discussing and exploration into system thinking, change management theory, self-assessment into the leadership and attributes required to lead successful system wide change
Executive Directors played a valuable role through attending part of the programme, sharing their personal leadership journey, experiences and insights. They also reinforced and role modelled the leadership behaviours and commitment required from participants to support the organisation in its transition and transformation.
In addition:
Each cohort had 3 Leadership Peer Supervision sets throughout the programme (peer learning and problem-solving challenges tackling real workplace issues)
Each participant developed a case study of their learning and their application of the learning from the programme to their role, team and service.
The programme was refined and adapted to meet the needs of the participants of each cohort and linked to organisational and system changes
Results
The impact of the programmes was evident through the case studies, triangulation of the evidence with their managers, post programme participant interviews and national staff survey response rates:
The content of the programme was quoted as relevant and resonated with participants, in particular; transactional analysis, team dynamics, leading through change, learning styles and personality preferences
95-100% of the 8 cohort participants agreed or strongly agreed that the learning objectives met their needs
100% reported that attending the programme has/will help them in their current and future roles
The programme impact had correlations to the staff opinion survey results showing an increased engagement score, and specifically around the questions relating to ‘Your manager’ which demonstrates improvement in all question areas with significant increase related to support from my manager.
Case studies showed an increase in: leadership confidence; assertiveness; and the increase in the ability to deal with conflict within the teams and resolve these issues.
A large number of delegates outlined how the programme supported them to understand the need to engage and involve staff in changes and how they felt they had an increase in their skills and knowledge to lead change in their services and across teams.
The case studies outlined that the peer learning sets had been quoted by many as “a powerful learning and support from their peers” “It has taught me that we all face similar challenges and that they are not insurmountable”
What the participants said:
“The programme has given me the time to reflect on my own behaviour, leadership required and how I need to adapt to the situation I am in and now have new tools to use to aid me in this”
“Attending the programme has given me confidence in my abilities as a leader and helped me to realise/acknowledge that I am actually quite good at the job. Support from colleagues on the course was invaluable and the facilitators were able to create a safe environment to share and learn from each other”.
“The course gave me a lot of skills and confidence in leading change getting individuals onside and committed to a project will ensure they remain engaged and sign up to the changes, giving the change longevity”.
“I gained a lot from the team tools, the learning on leading teams really resonated with me and I am really focussed on building the team, developing relationships and trust, and working well together so we get the best out of each other. I have taken on 2 projects on since the programme: one on setting ground rules for working together particular round handover; and one on reviewing the nursing philosophy and getting the team together to re-write this particularly going forward as a new Integrated organisation”
“Fantastic programme, I learnt something on each day, the facilitators were knowledgeable, supportive and adapted the days to meet our needs”
