Weeknotes Jan 31st -Feb 4th 2022

Somehow its been a year since my last weeknotes…

What’s gone well

I’ve actually found a few minutes to write some weeknotes, so that’s a good start!

Policy and delivery matrix teams: We’ve been building our delivery team for the digitising social care programme over recent months and we’re really starting to see the benefits of having delivery expertise working alongside our social care tech policy team. We’re forming matrix teams around our priorities and we’re doing lots of planning at the moment which means we can all see how things fit together, and be clearer on roles and responsibilities. It throws up issues and misunderstandings as well but they are inevitable I think and it means we’re catching them early!

Embedding social care in our technology foundations: I met with the team that lead the future connectivity programme within NHS Digital this week to talk about how we can take what they’ve learnt in health and build on it for social care. We have the budget to get things moving and a definite enthusiasm to work together. I will sit on their board as a senior sponsor from now on to help weave social care into their wider work. I also attended the cyber security leadership board and was really happy to see the strong focus on social care and be able to contribute to the plans that are emerging.

What’s been hard

Resilience: Everyone’s got a bit too much on their plate right now. It’s the end of the financial year, it’s winter and we’re going through a lot of change. I realised my resilience was at rock bottom this week because I got grumpy. And when I’m grumpy I can become quite intolerant and make my displeasure a bit too clear. It’s not a side I like of myself and is referred to as ‘scary Alice’ by my sister.

What will I do more of

Listening. And speaking up. I’ve taken on a role in representing the civil servants in the transition of NHSX to the transformation directorate in NHSE which means I need to be involved in a lot more conversations with different teams. I’m finding that while there are important issues that relate specifically to our roles in DHSC, what a lot of people care about is our shared purpose and the culture of listening, learning and collaboration.