My placement year at the CCG

4th July 2016- 29th July 2016

I will finish my placement on 29 July 2016, so sadly this will be my last blog post! :-( 

I can't believe how quickly my placement year has gone- I really couldn't have asked for a better placement! I am so grateful to the CCG for the opportunity to gain practical business experience and develop a range of new skills whilst being an undergraduate. 

I have learnt so much in one year and have been lucky enough to gain experience in a range of areas including; Quality & Performance, Contracting, Transformation, Finance, Clinical Project Management, Communications & Engagement, Marketing, Recruitment and Complaints. 

Highlights of my placement:

• Assisting with producing the contracts for the ophthalmology service. I have been fortunate enough to work through the whole process of contracting; starting from going out to tender for a contract to the commencement of the service delivery
• Assisting to manage the Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUINs) schemes- CQUINs are a Quality Improvement incentive for healthcare providers and are worth 2.5% of a provider’s contract. I had the opportunity to assist with monitoring the progress of the schemes and implementing new quality incentive schemes for 2016/17
• Designing a bi-monthly care home newsletter to go out to our 60 care homes in Eastern Cheshire
• Updating the quality schedules to be included in the 2016/17 Contracts
• Writing the Quality Strategy along with my manager for the CCG- I was really keen to learn how an organisation’s quality strategy is written and I’ve really enjoyed contributing to it
• Quality Innovation Productivity and Prevention plans: An NHS system wide financial recovery programme. I was keen to get really involved in this. I have been part of the QIPP Planning Team and learnt a lot about efficiency in healthcare.
• Carrying out the recruitment for the next placement students- from writing the job descriptions, liaising with the universities, shortlisting and interviewing; the other placement student and I were responsible for all of this. It was a fantastic experience being on the other side of the recruitment process
• Development and launch of our NHS CATCH app- I conducted primary marketing research, worked with app developers to design the content, designed adverts that went in the Cheshire newspapers and helped to design and distribute collateral to promote the app
• Writing a Business Case for 6 month funding of the CATCH app- I learnt how to do this on my PRINCE 2 course, though I had never written a business case before it was a great challenge and a good skill to learn
• Creating a new quality section and practice nurse section on the CCG’s website 
• Writing the monthly quality & performance report for the Clinical Quality & Performance Committee
• Working with the Complaints, Concerns & Compliments Team to learn more about how complaints are resolved, Professional Concerns, Serious Untoward Incidents (SUIs), MP Letters and Freedom Of Information Requests (FOIs)
• I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to undertake a variety of training courses whilst on my placement year:

1. Achieved Microsoft Excel Advanced Qualification
2. Achieved PRINCE 2 Project Management Qualification - This required sitting a written exam which I passed. PRINCE 2 is a Project Management methodology that can be used on any sized project. This will be extremely beneficial in my final year and most future job roles
3. Completed and Passed the Edward Jenner Leadership Programme- I learnt essential leadership skills that are transferable to future job roles and my final year at university
4. Completed and Passed the AQuA Quality Improvement Course
5. Completed and Passed a Presentation Skills Course

• Attending the NHS Health and Care Innovation Expo15/16 Event – I gained a great deal of knowledge and understanding and enjoyed learning about the progress we are making and the new systems in place to defragment processes and ultimately improve quality. The NHS England Chief Executive Simon Stevens and Jeremy Hunt MP, the Secretary of State for Health gave particularly interesting talks
• Learning different methods of commissioning – specifically Outcome Based Commissioning- along with the other placement student, I designed a project plan for the CCG to implement Outcome Based Commissioning 
• Producing a couple of Health Matters columns that were published in local newspapers
• Taking part in the CCG Bake Off!
• Not forgetting our Star Wars themed CCG Away Day!

It has been a real pleasure working with everyone at the CCG and for the NHS over the past year. Everyone I have worked with over the past year has been extremely kind and supportive. 

Thank you to everyone at NHS Eastern Cheshire CCG for making it such a great year and I hope to see you all in the future! 

Many thanks,

Katie

My penultimate month at the CCG! :(

1^st June 2016 - 30^th June 2016

As always, it’s been a busy month at the CCG!

Our new placement students will be starting next week so Amy and I have been preparing induction packs and schedules. I can’t believe I only have one month of my placement left, I will be very sad to leave the CCG!

In addition to this, I have been assisting my manager Andrew in writing the CCG’s Quality Strategy. I have been responsible to create the action plans for the year, outlining the national and local context for the strategy and the national and local quality drivers, amongst other things. I’ve really enjoyed contributing to the strategy and learning about what a CCG’s quality strategy is comprised of.

I have also completed my three day AQuA Quality Improvement course. I learnt a lot over the three days, some of which I have previously learnt about at university so it was great to refresh myself. The tools/topics I found particularly useful are stakeholder mapping and engagement, resilience, sustainability, PSDA Cycles, change models, measurement run charts, SPC charts, pareto charts, mood mapping amongst many others.

I’m also working on various Care Home projects.  Along with Charles, our Communications and Engagement manager, I’m creating a Care Home newsletter to go out bi-monthly to our 60 care homes in Eastern Cheshire. I have been responsible to design the hard copy to post out.

I also designed some logos for a care home quality collaborative that our care home quality lead has organised which has been fun to do, as my degree is in business and marketing I enjoy being creative!

Alongside this, I have been exploring a virtual tours idea in our care homes. “The Hub” has recently launched in Macclesfield District General Hospital as a direct result of the reducing delayed transfers of care Process Mapping event I attended at the end of last year. The Hub aims to further facilitate patients who are ready to be discharged to a care home and their relatives and carers. It is crucial that they are very well-informed of the care homes available at short notice, so we are working on improving the provision of information and guidance about the local care homes. I am exploring the idea of a virtual tour website or a single point of access for all the care homes in Eastern Cheshire.

Also this month, I have been reviewing providers’ quarter 4 CQUIN evidence. It has been really interesting to view the achievement of milestones over the year and the subsequent progress that has been made across many specialties. 

Happy International Nurses Day!

4th April 2016 - 13th May 2016

I've had an extremely busy month at the CCG so apologies for the very late blog post! 

Along with my manager Andrew, I am working on the CCG's Quality Strategy. I have been researching our peers' quality strategies as I've never written a quality strategy before so I'm very keen to assist with this and learn about how they are written. We also need to ensure the strategy is aligned to the CCG's Operational Plan and 2016/17 QIPP plans.

In good timing with this, I am currently doing a Quality Improvement AQuA course  at Manchester Central Foundation Trust. The course is over 3 days and the first day I've completed so far has been very beneficial. We were looking at the work of quality improvement pioneers such as Deming and Juran who I've previously studied at university. We were exploring what quality means and how it differs for a consumer, an employee, an organisation and a patient. We were also introduced to various quality improvement tools to use when conducting a project which will be of great use in the future. After nearly a year of not having any seminars or lectures, the course will be a great way to get me back in to studying mode, before I return to university in September!

The 2016/17 CQUINs are finalized having been agreed with all providers as are the 2016/17 Quality Schedules for our providers (as mentioned/explained in previous blog posts!). I am now creating Trackers and evidence reporting templates in order to monitor provider's performance for each CQUIN measure throughout the year.
The CATCH app adverts and editorial are being displayed in the Cheshire newspapers over the next few months which is very exciting! They are in the Knutsford, Wilmslow and Crewe Guardians;  The Macclesfield Express; Congleton, Sandbach and Alsager Chronicles and on the well-known "Mums in the Know" website.The adverts are shown below:

We have now received all the promotional material for CATCH which looks brilliant! Kate and I have been busy creating and distributing promotional packs for healthcare professionals to distribute to patients.

Also this month, everything has been finalised in the recruitment process for our new placement students.It's been really interesting to go through the whole recruitment process starting with writing job descriptions to finalising contracts. We are all looking forward to our new placement students starting in July. 

Yesterday was International Nurses Day! Kate and I delivered 200 cakes to our 22 practices across Eastern Cheshire to show the CCG's support and to celebrate the brilliant, hard work nurses do. All the nurses were extremely appreciative and it was a pleasure to meet them in person. Eastern Cheshire is much bigger than we anticipated! After 6 hours of driving we were done! We took a couple of photos of the day, please see below:

Earlier this week, as part of the Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) process, the CCG held another workshop reviewing potential schemes to implement. It was a very productive workshop, whereby several schemes were appraised, and the focus was on identifying potential risks to consider and reducing costs. 

As well as this,the CCG had an Away Day earlier this month which celebrated the CCG's achievements, focussing on our plans and priorities for the years ahead with lots of fun, team building activities in between. It was a Star Wars theme which worked really well including a Star War Bake-Off! As you will be able to tell from the photos below, we have some amazing bakers at the CCG!

   

Finalizing the 2016/17 CQUINs

22^nd February 2016- 29^th March 2016

This month at the CCG, along with my manager Andrew, I have been putting together the 2016/17 CQUIN templates.The National Guidance for CQUINs has recently been published by NHS England, therefore over the past few weeks I have been developing the CQUINs for each provider. The 2016/17 National CQUINs will focus on improving NHS Staff Health and Wellbeing,  timely identification and treatment for SEPSIS in emergency departments and inpatient settings, reducing antibiotic consumption and focussing on antimicrobial stewardship.

The 2016/17 National CQUINs for Mental Health providers focus on improving physical healthcare to reduce premature mortality in people with SMI (Severe Mental Illness).

There are also local CQUINs that the CCG and providers agree locally. Commissioners and providers must work collaboratively throughout this process to ensure that the goals and milestones are realistic and achievable. The process therefore requires negotiation whilst ensuring that high quality care is delivered and safety is key.

Also this month I have been writing the CATCH Project Mandate. I had learnt about Project Mandates in PRINCE 2 but I hadn't written one myself before so it was a very useful skill to learn.

The purpose of the project mandate was to appraise and justify continued funding for the app for 6 months, specifically its maintenance costs. The mandate is comprised of a strategic case, economic case, commercial case, financial case and a management case.

Along with Kate Banks from the Communications & Engagement Team, I have been working on the promotion of CATCH. I have arranged the adverts to be in the main newspapers and websites that will target parents across Cheshire East. I am looking forward to seeing the CATCH promotional material soon which we can distribute to health professionals and other stakeholders.

I have also been working on a System Resilience Group (SRG) project; COPD management in Primary Care. I have been analysing whether an initiative that the group implemented has been effective within the GP surgeries.  In order to see the outcomes of the initiative, I have created a summary report for each practice in Eastern Cheshire explaining the impact so far as a result of the initiative.

Earlier in the month, as part of the 2016/17 Financial Recovery process, the CCG held an Efficiency Schemes workshop, to determine how the local NHS can work more effectively and efficiently. Attendees to the workshop comprised of GPs, patient reps and CCG staff, who appraised the viability of potential efficiency schemes.

There are several more efficiency workshops planned over the next couple of months to explore other efficiency schemes around various themes.

A couple of weeks ago, Amy Towey who is also on a placement at the CCG and I presented at our staff briefing about our placement journey so far. We did this using Prezi (as mentioned in previous blog posts and consequently I'm now a converted Prezi fan) and we received alot of positive feedback! I can't believe I have been working at the CCG for 8 months now, the time has flown by!

Catch is launched!

15th January 2016- 18th February 2016

Apologies for the lack of blog posts lately, it has been a very busy month at the CCG and I have also just returned from a very relaxing break in Portugal!

Before I went on holiday, I was assisting my manager Andrew with producing a report for the 2016/17 CQUINs. The report outlined the process we have undertaken to agree the 2016/17 CQUINs, detailing the results from the workshops with providers and the work that has taken place since then. 

A couple of weeks ago, we conducted the interviews for the new placement students, who will take over mine and Amy’s roles in the summer.  It was a brilliant experience to be on the other side of the interview panel. We interviewed a number of candidates for the roles and asked them to produce a presentation including the question ‘What is a CCG?’ All of the candidates produced excellent, well-researched presentations. Though it was a difficult decision as the scores were very close, we have selected two great candidates and we are looking forward to our new students starting in the summer.

As well as this, I’ve been doing some research comparing trends within integrated and non-integrated organisations. I have been analysing CQC reports and identifying the cultural elements to monitor their impact on the organisation’s performance.

The Catch app has officially been launched and is now live available to download on the App store! The app was developed by ourselves, NHS South Cheshire CCG and the council to help parents and carers of children under five in Cheshire East. The app aims to empower parents and carers by providing NHS medical advice for them to decide when their child needs treatment or when self-care would be most appropriate.

For the launch, the CCG held a professional engagement event whereby around 60 clinicians attended to learn about the app and try it for themselves. There was alot of positive feedback and support for the app, it is certainly an invaluable tool for parents and carers in Cheshire East.

For more information on CATCH or to download it, visit www.catchapp.co.uk

As mentioned in previous blog posts, over the past couple of months I have been undertaking the PRINCE 2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) course. PRINCE 2 is a project management methodology, which incorporates seven principles, themes and processes that should help to control and manage any project, regardless of its size. I sat the exam a couple of weeks ago and passed! I am very grateful for the opportunity to enhance my personal development skills whilst on my placement. 

Whilst we continue developing the 2016/17 CQUINs, I am also monitoring and reviewing the current 2015/16 CQUINs. I have recently reviewed the Quarter 3 evidence that our providers have submitted.

We are also in the process of putting together the 2016/17 Quality Schedules for our providers. These form part of the contract and list what the provider is required to achieve and report against when providing the service. There is a set of nationally mandated indicators which all providers are expected to achieve for example 95% of patients being admitted, discharged or transferred within four hours of arrival at A&E. There are nationally set consequences for non-achievement of these, such as financial penalties.  There are also locally agreed quality requirements which must fit under the 5 domains that make up the NHS Outcomes Framework.

Earlier this month we held a 2016/17 Financial Recovery workshop. It was extremely interesting to learn about ways in which the CCG plan to reduce inefficiencies. I learnt about Rightcare, a national tool which focuses on where to look, what to change and how to change. I am keen to learn more about the CCG's financial planning whilst on the rest of my placement.

Happy New Year!

4^th January- 15^th January 2016

Happy New Year! I've had a lovely, relaxing Christmas break and I feel recharged, ready for 2016!

I have recently been working with the Communications Team on Catch, the self-care app that we are launching for parents and carers of children ages 0-5 living in Cheshire. We have been conducting further market research for the app, holding testing sessions at Children’s Centres in Cheshire. We received a lot of useful feedback from parents which has been extremely positive, with everyone really supporting the idea of Catch. We found parents particularly liked that the app gives NHS reliable advice, as oppose to conflicting advice for example in different books.  I think Catch will be particularly useful for first time parents who may not have a great deal of knowledge about babies’ health and will have one place they can look to, to get NHS trusted advice.

We have been discussing the marketing for the launch of Catch and have decided on having a health professional’s engagement event. We will invite clinicians from across Cheshire such as GPs, midwives, children’s A&E staff, nurses and health care assistants. This event will allow us to explain the reason behind Catch and allow health professionals to try the app themselves so that they can promote its use to patients in order to reduce unnecessary children's A&E admissions. We are also planning  for a public launch of Catch.

As well as this, along with Amy and our managers, I have been shortlisting for the new placement students as the closing date for the placement positions was this week. There are some great candidates for the roles and I am looking forward to meeting them at the interviews next month. I have really enjoyed the recruitment process so far and have learnt what recruiters look for in a good CV.

I have also been working on developing CQUIN ideas for next year; we had a productive workshop with our mental health provider CWP last week and will be having our staff workshop next week to develop initial ideas further.

Also this week, I attended our quarterly contract meeting with the private hospital in Macclesfield; Spire Regency. We commission certain services from Spire and so have a quarterly contract meeting with them to review finance and activity and quality and performance. 

I also attended my first Caring Together meeting this week. Caring Together is a programme central to the Transformation team, which is the department that Amy, the other placement student at the CCG works in. As I haven’t been involved in Transformation much, I was keen to learn more about what transformation entails. I learnt a lot about the innovative projects that are ongoing surrounding the programme.