Where now for NHSX – Failing fast?

People who have heard me speak will know how complimentary I have been about NHSX – how it has taken up the cudgel and run with it – providing leadership in a time of such accelerated transformation. So what is it doing well and what are the ways it could get even better?

People who have heard me speak will know how complimentary I have been about NHSX – how it has taken up the cudgel and run with it – providing leadership in a time of such accelerated transformation.
So what is it doing well and what are the ways it could get even better?

The amount of coproduction, user testing and groups we are being consulted on is great for social care. This was reinforced in a webinar I have just presented at the Health Excellence Through Technology (HETT) conference. On the panel with me were Breid O’Brien (Acting Deputy Director of Digital Health NHSx)¹ and Ian James (the NHSX Joining up Care Programme) and Steve Morgan (Partnership Director at Agilisys) and we were brought to task by Nicola Haywood-Alexander (Executive Strategic Advisor at the Immersion Group).

Breid and Ian emphasised that their role is to embed and scale new and existing technologies and build the skills that will help the NHS and social care meet the challenges of the next few months and beyond. They want to ensure that those who have greater health and social care needs are well supported by digital services and that no one is excluded. The race is on and there is a definite need for speed.

NHSX’s Joining up Care programme has three strands
• Connecting Care Providers Рbetter connectivity for care providers
• Supporting people at home Рaccessing health services from home
• Sharing Care Records

The first and third of these are where I at Care England and my colleagues in Digital Social Care (www.digitalsocialcare.co.uk) are being invited in to help ensure that they are getting the right input from the right people which is really exciting. They are listening, creating and working fast, taking heed of the maxim Matthew Gould, CEO of NHSX’s maxim, that in health and care we need to learn to fail fast.

There are three things refinement to NHSX’s programme which I recommend:
1. Leading the discussion on the creation of value and how social care organisations can be rewarded for the value they create;
2. That NHSX embraces Asset Based Community Development (ABCD): working to assess all the resources in the sector and maximise them; and
3. Translate the new developments into how commissioners commission care creatively to reward people investing in new quality ways of working.

There is so much that is going right and I hope that the ability to learn when things go wrong is heightened. Surely not everything NHSX does will succeed – so go on I dare you all to encourage NHSX to fail fast.

[1] I recommend you read Breid’s Blog.

Daniel Casson
Adviser on digital transformation to Care England
Executive of Digital Social Care www.digitalsocialcare.co.uk
Casson Consulting: Digital Transformation in Social Care
Governor the Alder Hey Children’s NHS Trust https://alderhey.nhs.uk/
@CareEngDigital @DigiSocialCare
Daniel Casson _ LinkedIn