7 December 2023
As we slip quietly into December and head towards Christmas, I breathe a small sigh of relief. The Business Case and Supporting Evidence pack plus the PR video is complete! It sits now with our Programme Director and Clinical Director for their thoughts and tweaks and then its ready for the world to see. As we head towards the end of the year, I head towards the end of this part of the project. Endings.
Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!
Will it be good enough, professional enough, will it even be read!?! I’ve purposely tried not to make it a massively wordy document, 50 pages of my internal voice! No one needs that or has time to read and digest that. I learned from Nifty Fox that actually people need visual representations to absorb the message, requiring less time to understand what the message is, so I’ve tried to remember that whilst not committing to the overuse of Canva! Hence the creation of an accompanying video.
The learning, recommendations and information gathered has to be of use to more than just South Yorkshire. This is where the idea of the centre being a National Innovation Centre really makes its point; this has so much potential for shared learning, informing others of what works and what does not could surely save other regions and ultimately NHSE wasted money and time.
Who is going to fund this? Unfortunately, we know that there isn’t a huge pot of funding for capital spend, there’s barely enough to fund what we need it to let alone anything new and fancy!! Will anyone see the potential, not only that, will they see what will happen if we don’t do this?? Do I look for multiple investors and (dare I say it) money from outside the NHS! (Gasp!)
Just how wide is the potential stakeholder/user group for this!? We started off nearly three years ago just thinking of Primary Care as just referring to General Practice, that widened quickly to community Pharmacy, Dentistry and Eye Care. There is then our aim to help the ICB with their ‘Bold Ambitions’ by being integrated with Social Care which is a huge under resourced market on its own. Now the thoughts are, could this be an opportunity for the entire system?? Trusts and Local Authorities??
I may need a sit down!
Connections made through the Health Innovation Network, our Workforce and Innovation Leads at the ICB will allow me to be able to access groups and meetings that I can present the Innovation Centre to properly. To get it known more widely than it is, to attract attention and therefore investors. If it gets adopted by the ICS then I see that we’ve gained a massively influential fan club, talking about the idea to all who will listen… that’s the theory then. 😉
In doing that it will, I hope unlock other connections that have influence over reform, innovation and perhaps more importantly larger budgets. Connecting me with private investors and those SMEs who could help us with some research and development of further products.
There is certainly a school of thought that we could work with our sister hubs in the region to develop further; again, the learning we’ve got from this can be shared now, further than SY alone.
IF there is to be funding made available, this would be the plan of action for the next three years. Of course, you can’t deliver much without a team and a specific work plan for them, so with that in mind a team consisting of the following would be placed to push this forward –
With an injection of funding whether in all or in part, there is quite a lot we can do. The outline of the Programme Development Lead role shows the work streams directing the next phase of the project.
As for ‘selling’ the idea I need to really get the point home the ‘what ifs’, what if we don’t do this, what are the consequences? What can this facility do that will not only equip our workforce effectively but also help to deliver the ambitions of the NHS long term workforce plan?
Even though this is the end of this particular piece of work, there is still so much to do and actually, still so much going on!
I’ve put an infographic together as a snapshot of the projects either underway or that have been drawn up and funding from the original budget allocated that come under the Innovation Centre umbrella.
Busy! Busy!
I’m tired just looking at this but it’s all very necessary and I’m really lucky to be the one who gets to do it.
Let’s see what happens over the next three months, who knows what the next blog will tell you?!
Thanks for reading this and every other blog!
Liz
