Top 5 tips for delivering great training

I’m Ben Weller, Project Manager and Head of Training Services at MES. I have been delivering bespoke training services for elected representatives for over three years now and wanted to share some of the principles I use to develop our programmes.

1. You are providing more than a training service, you are delivering a set of feelings
When creating a bespoke training programme, I usually find that an important part of the service I am actually being asked to deliver is a set of feelings for the representatives and the commissioner. For the representatives, it is a feeling of clarity, confidence, inspiration; a belief in the role and its purpose. For the commissioner, it is the assurance they have done the right thing by giving the representatives the best possible start. After all, the quality of the training will directly affect how the representatives feel about their role - a positive start is essential – and the power of this should not be under-estimated.

Happy Thanksgiving

Over the past year, the MES team has become more international, with members joining us from New Zealand, Sweden and the United States. In the spirit of honouring and sharing the cultures within our international contingent, today we have celebrated a slightly belated Thanksgiving. While we spent the afternoon devouring pumpkin pie – a traditional Thanksgiving dessert to accompany a dinner of turkey, cranberry sauce, gravy and stuffing – we also called upon our American colleague Mallory to share some thoughts on what this holiday is all about.

There are many origin stories of how the Thanksgiving holiday came into being, and debate as to how realistic some conceptions are of a grand feast where the early settlers and Native Americans came together to eat, share and give thanks for the season’s harvest. Regardless of what may or may not have happened several hundred years ago, the underlying theme of sharing and togetherness persists. Thanksgiving is a time to sit down for a meal with loved ones without the frenzy of gift giving and receiving, and reflect upon the things we already have to be thankful for over the past year.

NHS Alliance

MES together with some of our colleagues at ERS hosted a workshop earlier today at the NHS Alliance conference.  Paul, together with Luke at ERS ran a session on Accountability, Engagement & Governance in the NHS.  We were recording the session so if you weren't able to make it to the actual event you can see the full discussion.



Video streaming by Ustream

Sharing Best Practice of NHS Membership Engagement

Engagement: it can be hard to define and tricky to measure.

by Ben Weller

So what happens when you invite 29 people into one room in Manchester for a day, throw in a little caffeine, some background music, and ask them to solve these and other problems?

...The “NHS Membership Engagement Network, North West”, of course, or, as it has become known to the Twitterati among you, #NHSNW

NHS Membership Engagement Network

Today MES, together with Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, has been hosting the first ever meeting of the NHS Membership Engagement Network in the North West.  The meeting brought together NHS staff from all over the region to share best practice on engaging members, running consultations and governor engagement.

There's been plenty of lively discussion, and lots of great ideas.  If you're on Twitter you can have a look at all the day's events by following the #nhsnw hashtag

MES Strategy Day - Part 2

Last week the MES team had its annual strategy day.  It was a chance to get the team out of the office, to provide a platform for all to have a say about what changes are needed and what our focus should be in the coming year. It was also about spending some time with each other without phones going, emails buzzing (do emails buzz?) or managers hassling!

So my core topics this year were QUALITY and EDUCATION. 

MES Strategy Day in the Cotswolds - Part 1

The MES team spent a few days out of London last week for our annual Strategy Day.  We spent the day planning the next twelve months and doing some team bonding - this year orienteering in the Cotswolds.  We had a great time and we've got some exciting plans for the year ahead.  Come back on Friday to hear more.

FTN Conference Round Up

Last week members of MES and our parent company Electoral Reform Services travelled up to Liverpool to exhibit at the Foundation Trust Network Annual Conference and Exhibition.

The conference itself saw the introduction of Chris Hopson as new chief executive of the FTN and everyone at MES would like to take this opportunity to say a big welcome.
Conferences are usually a great time to spend bit of time away from the office with colleagues, getting a bit of perspective and catching up on the latest news.

One of the big take home messages for us this year was around the remaining provider Trusts and what the future holds for them. We had heard suggestion at the conference that only as few as 35-40 of the remaining aspirant Trusts can expect to be authorised. With the recent anouncement that the CCG deemed Cambridgeshire Community Services as unviable, it appears that crunch time for providers may be here at last.

At MES we have always asked the question 'how does this affect the member, the public and the patient?'. With the onset of more murders and executions (mergers and acquisitions) what happens to the patient's relationship with the outgoing Trust? Communication and involvement in the process can often lead to an even higher level of engagement, and in some intances can even halt the mereger altogther. When there is strong public connection to an organisation, it's a lot harder to simply remove it.

When not debating NHS engagement matters, MES and ERS staff had time to explore a little of Liverpool, grab some great asian food at Tokyou and even cook breakfast together. Getting into the swing of all things Merseyside we even found time to create some alternative Beatles songs - 'while my FT database gently beeps' being a personal favourite!