Mind the gap - Weeknote - WC 24th July

Obviously there has been a little hiatus on my weeknotes - hopefully you don't mind the gap! This is primarily down to the tricky balance of a new baby, lots to do work wise, and outside of work commitments. I have massive admiration for people that can consistently weeknote, but I also need to remember that most don't have the same set of circumstances to me right now - so I probably can't hold myself to that standard. I'm not going to go back through the annals of time - this week had enough to cover off.

Who did I speak with?

I went to Digital Health Summer School and met lots of new people, which was great. I also spent the day with BOB ICB on Wednesday, where we spent some time hacking through a gnarly challenge that we had been struggling with. We have some options, and clarity of the challenges and risks associated to each.

Today I had a tech roadmap session with our Tech Ops team. There were some really good questions from the team, who definitely took up my invitation to ask the controversial and hard questions. We talked about the significant compromise that comes with the central tenancy, why we haven't come away from it yet, and why we need to keep a watching brief.

I also ran through a presentation about our internal improvement programme with our exec team. Sadly I had to dial in from a service station rather than be there in person, but was very glad of the support from Charlie who was in the room.

I also spent most of the week with Emma, as our diaries overlapped with the same meetings and events. I really enjoyed our chats as we travelled about in the last few days.

What did I enjoy?

It was great to get out and about this week - I met lots of new people, which was nice. As those that know me well appreciate, I'm quite fond of a chat over a beer. This was something I had a lot of opportunity to do this week.

What was hard?

A week on the road this week was pretty tough, as it's the second week in three I've been away from the family - I was very glad to get home this afternoon.

What did I learn?

A key theme at summer school was about working together as a system and breaking down silos. The digital maturity assessments were mentioned, and looking at the results presented - there were differences between regions. I think we need to be really careful when we compare regions and systems.

We have to remember that some ICS' are brand new and some ICS' are on exactly the same footprint they had as CCGs 5+ years ago. If working together is critical then we need to acknowledge that building new relationships and plans doesn't happen overnight. Therefore those lucky enough to have a consistent shape and size are inevitably going to be in a different place to the brand new systems. There will be a gap initially, which we need to acknowledge and make sure we share the lessons from those further along in their journey so that we close the gap as soon as possible.