A few weeks ago in a planning workshop, our CEO Ben encouraged me to post more; thus gifting me a nice and straightforward NYE resolution. It’s not an unfair challenge. Little does he know last January I set myself the personal target of publishing 3 blog posts in the entire year to jolt myself back into a habit. I think I’ve managed one so far. So this is an attempt at being a whole third less useless.
Leading the health and care team at Public Digital for the last 12 months has been another of immense intellectual fulfilment, enjoyment, and pride. Tough problems with great clients. So, here’s a quick note on some of the year’s highlights to end 2023 in the way I want to start 2024.
(1) On the basis you get nowhere in the transformation of health and care without really understanding clinical practice, this year we were delighted to add a doctor to our core team. Not just any doctor though — one that also has a Masters in Design. Welcome Saw. We’ve also done important work to strengthen the technical expertise of our network in areas like population health or provider trust technology.
(2) From a previously predominantly NHS-oriented client landscape we had more client diversity in healthcare this year. And in particular have made strides in the charity space, and social care. Our team is highly purpose driven, so hearing a client report for instance that thanks to our help we “genuinely improved outcomes for children” as part of a safeguarding project we were working on will live long in the memory.
(3) Public Digital is part of a family of companies called kyu. Travelling to meet our health counterparts from the kyu various companies in New York last March was a thrill, and gave me a much better sense of the capabilities we have across the group. I already knew about the brilliant people in IDEO, but the group also has skills in urban design, public affairs, behavioural insights, development, branding and creative, and more.
(4) Although we still do a lot remotely, getting out on the road in the UK has been invaluable to form ever better and more trusting relationships. This year we got to: Barnsley, Blackpool, Bristol, Chelmo, Dartford, Derby, Ipswich, Liverpool, Maidstone, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Southampton, Warrington, Worthing. And of course lots and lots of lovely old London.
(5) This was also a year when we started to think about the intersections between some of our practices within Public Digital. To that end, I’ve been working with my counterpart Emily and her amazing team on healthcare opportunities in the Global South. This included in the latter part of the year, supporting Madagascar to examine opportunities around open source healthcare technologies. Our team was also represented at the Global Digital Health Forum in Washington DC at the start of December.
(6) It wouldn’t be the health and care team without plenty of work in the NHS as well of course, and that has ranged from deep dive assessments into trust digital maturity, to work at the national level on products & services, and getting right back to our roots with a bit of website work thrown in too. We’ve also continued our amazing partnership with NHS England, NHS Providers and NHS Confederation on the Digital Boards program. And we dropped into a handful of the major events of the year. Particular highlights including Cate appearing on a panel with Patricia Hewitt to talk about ICS digitisation, as well as Mike keynoting the NHS Providers conference.
(7) Our client feedback has been phenomenal this year. Lots of it has been variation on the theme that we “show up differently”, and get great results because of it. I like to think of this as internet-era consultancy — borne out of the unique space we occupy between classic consultancy and digital delivery. Amongst it all, my absolute favourite was hearing that “Public Digital have made us into a team”. This outcome is something that surprisingly hard to capture as a deliverable in a statement of work, but is beyond doubt the most value we could ever leave a client.
So there you are. Plenty of highlights, but that’s not to say it’s been universally positive or easy going. The contortions at the centre of the NHS and its ripple effects have made things bumpy at times. But through those experiences, comes wisdom, and resilience. Onwards.
We are PD Health and Care. We generate momentum for radical change by:
- assessing and building digital maturity
- designing digital strategies
- resetting difficult programmes
- building exemplar services
- coaching leaders
- developing teams
- changing cultures
- transforming operating models
If you think we can help you with any of the following give me a shout [email protected].
Merry Christmas everyone. 🎄
This post was originally published on Medium on 19 December 2023.