Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (Mental Health & Community)
Leading for Change Programme 2014-2017

Situation

Healthskills was commissioned to provide a trust-wide leadership programme and coaching to develop a cadre of leaders who could bring about change to the Trust’s culture and performance – aimed at those leaders aspiring to director and assistant director/clinical director positions. Healthskills was initially commissioned to design and deliver a pilot programme for one cohort of 20 leaders in 2014. Healthskills won the subsequent tender extending to three more cohorts over three years 2015-17.

Context

At the launch of the programme, the Trust was facing a number of challenges:

• Staff managing rather than leading change
• Trust under-performance with CQC rating Requires Improvement
• Need to develop a shared accountability
• Need to build proactive engagement with commissioners
• Required to operate at an accelerated pace of change
• Need to drive high levels of quality and safety through rapid change
• Desire to create a collective approach to leadership and a culture of patient focused care.

These challenges required a coalition of leaders from across the organisation able to shape a new culture.  The Healthskills programmes were designed to tackle the challenges and accomplish three aims:

• Develop self-awareness and enhance leader’s impact
• Maximise engagement from teams locally and across boundaries
• Collectively transform the Trust and improve patient care.

Approach

The Healthskills design for the programme incorporated the following elements, based on the 70:20:10 model and delivered over an eight- to nine-month period for each cohort:

• Kouzes & Posner Leadership Challenge 360° Assessment
• One-day programme launch, orientation and ‘Insights’ session
• 2 x 1.5 hour coaching sessions
• 4 x half-day masterclasses linked to the 5 Kouzes & Posner Leadership Challenge domains:

• Understanding and leading self – Model the Way
• Leading others – Enabling Others to Act
• Leading change – Inspiring a Shared Vision
• Influencing Change – Challenge the Process
  • 3 x 0.5-day action learning sets
  • 1 x half-day patient engagement session (co-facilitated with in-house team)
  • 1 x half-day final Leadership and Learning conference – covered the fifth domain Encourage the Heart.
  • Participants were required to present their learning outcomes to the Executive Team in terms of how they had developed as a leader; how their teams had developed; what they had brought collectively to develop the Trust

All the facilitator team had previous experience in delivery of Healthskills Trust Leadership Programmes; One member of the team had been involved in facilitating NHS Leadership Academy national programmes; and two had held Chief Officer/Director posts in Provider Trusts/Commissioning Organisations.

Impact

A full evaluation of outcomes for each cohort was undertaken which scored overall for all elements 4 – Good/5 – Excellent. Analysis highlighted the following learning outcomes:

• Cross-site working and networking in multi-disciplinary cohorts provided a breadth of views and a rich learning experience that was carried back into the organisation
• Coaching sessions provided a safe space to focus on authentic personal leadership issues and had a major personal impact for participants
• One participant developed a model of ‘Learning Into Action’, which was approved and subsequently resourced by the Trust
• Many participants used action learning approaches with their teams back at work and continued to meet in their learning set groups
• Master classes generated insight, challenges to accepted practice and new learning.
• The programme identified and developed new talent for the organisation