Hitting the target, but missing the point

Today the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt speaks at a health conference in Surrey on standards in the NHS, the dangers highlighted by the Francis report and of the risks of mediocrity or aiming simply not to “come last”.

In his speech he uses one phrase (originally coined by NHS Chief Executive David Nicholson) which particularly resonates with me, and regardless of political persuasion, I think is a pretty good sound bite.  He suggests “Hospitals are hitting targets but missing the point”.

Clinical performance and safety are naturally amongst the highest priorities within the NHS, and I think that is where the Minister’s sentiment may be directed.  However it can also be applied as a warning to the world of membership and engagement in the NHS.  MES was set up to help organisations develop and deliver meaningful engagement and that is a core part of our day-to-day ethos.  But does it feed through into the increasingly busy and stretched membership offices of NHS Foundation Trusts?  Is the focus on hitting targets and as such misses the point?  And what will new CCGs focus on given they too have a clear remit to engage with local health communities and the public.

Top Tips for Recruitment

Previously we’ve shared with you our top tips for surviving the British weather when out doing recruitment work.  This week Amy in our recruitment team shares her top five tips for a better recruitment campaign.

As we look ahead to 2013 there is a clear aim at the forefront of NHS trusts agendas – to build a membership that is representative of the local community. In advance of submitting reports and plans to Monitor, NHS trusts are reviewing the representation of their membership.

Would you recommend us to your friends and family?

These days it’s quite common to be asked for feedback from companies whose services you’ve used, you might get an email from Amazon asking if you were happy with your last DVD delivery, or a restaurant might give you a feedback form asking about your meal.  Here at MES we do the same sending out feedback forms to all of our clients on a regular basis.  From April this year the NHS will be expected to do the same thing.  Back in May last year the Prime Minister announced that the so-called “Friends and Family” test would be rolled out across the NHS, with a minimum of 15% patients being asked whether they would recommend the hospital ward they’d visited, or the A&E they’d been treated in to their family and friends.

Braving the Winter Weather

After returning from toasty Australia 2 weeks ago (sadly I mean that literally following the recent bush fires in Tasmania) it is quite a shock to the system getting acclimatised to the brutal British weather. Amy and I lead the membership recruitment team  and spend much of the year travelling the length and breadth of the country, encouraging participation and gathering support from the British public for their local NHS Trust. As a result we are now veterans at braving all weather and delivering recruitment campaigns in the harshest of conditions. Here are our top tips when it comes to being prepared for all eventualities:

Digital Engagement in the NHS

As we heard in the Chancellor’s autumn statement toParliament earlier this week, austerity clearly isn’t going away anytime soonand budgets across all government departments will remain stretched for theforeseeable future. Yet within the NHS there is still a need to engage with thepublic and that work isn’t free. So in an environment where budgets are beingreduced Trusts need to look at new methods of engagement that are more costeffective. Digital engagement (using a range of digital channels to create aconversation) is one of the ways this can be achieved. As well as the potentialfinancial benefits, a possibly far more important reason for greater use ofdigital engagement is that it allows the NHS to engage with a much wider poolof the population. Traditional methods of engagement can only work so far;digital engagement allows Trusts to reach out to those normally excluded andhear from a wider sector of the public, patients and service users.

Social Media

While social media is becoming increasingly common in theprivate sector, the public sector has been a little slow to catch up. And whilemost NHS organisations have some form of social media presence, it’s not alwaysused in the most effective way. Research conducted by Pew has found that as ofAugust 2012 69% of adults with an internet connection used social media – withFacebook being the most popular. The figures for young people are much higher.As a result it seems obvious that the NHS should be using social media as a keypart of its engagement work with the public, especially when it comes to youngpeople.

At MES we’re trying to make it easier for Trust’s to usesocial media (in this case Twitter and Facebook) by integrating them directlyinto our membership database. So as well as recording traditional communicationmethods they can now record members’ social media contacts. With thisinformation they can then directly communicate with their members via these twosocial networks. Whether it’s updating their Facebook status or tweeting attheir members, it takes just a matter of seconds to use the tools we’ve builtto start the conversation.

Email

But of course digital engagement is not just about socialmedia. Trusts have traditionally sent out newsletters to their members on aquarterly basis and this is a great way of keeping them up-to-date on recentdevelopments. However it can be very costly, especially for the larger Trustswhere their membership can be over 20,000. So many Trusts are moving towards email distribution, or hosting thenewsletter online.  If Trusts are unsureabout uploading a standard PDF to their website there are plenty of servicesavailable (such as scribd.com) where a digital version of a newsletter can becreated that makes the online reading experience much more satisfying.

 

Whichever channels the NHS ends up using, digitalengagement needs to form a central element of how the health servicecommunicates and engages with the wider public over the next few years.

Seasonal Membership Recruitment

 

As we head well and truly into the Christmas period, we are seeing more and more members of the public signing up to become members of Foundation Trusts. This week MES has been working alongside the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust and the Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Partnership NHS trust with brand new members getting involved from Bristol to Tamworth!

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

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!

Foundation Trusts: Their contribution to the engagement debate… and science!

Next week is the annual NHS Foundation Trust Network conference, now in its 5^th year. This year it’s a 2-day event – evidence of the sector’s growth and development, and of course the huge change going on in the NHS right now. As ever, MES and its parent company ERS will be there chatting to clients, putting our feelers out and keeping our ears to the ground.

In advance of that, today we’re launching our publication about the sector’s impact on engagement.  In 2012, it is difficult to get through the day without seeing or hearing a news story, a government initiative being launched or a campaign commencing that talks about the importance to engage with us all.  We should all be engaging – being consulted, taking part, being listened to, no decision made about us without us and so on.

Consultation Translation

Pushto, Tamil, Tigrinya, Swahilli, Somali, Punjabi, Mandarin, Hindi, Gujarati, French, Farsi, Bengali. The Shaping a Healthier Future consultation summary document has been translated into all of these languages.

MES worked alongside the London Communications Agency to create the entire suite of consultation materials for NHS North West London's service reconfiguration consultation.



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CCG Practice Team Engagement – Where to Begin?

Wave 1 Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs)  are on the cusp of authorisation. However this is not the end, this is not even the end of the beginning!

Leading up to this momentous occasion, CCGs have not been sitting idly around. There has been a charge to ensure that GP’s, Nurses, Practice Managers and Receptionists are on-board and know how to contribute.

In our work alongside emerging CCGs, so far, the biggest challenge has been simply to get through to people. In the run up to authorisation there is a daily typhoon of emails, letters, bulletins and more emails, and not a lifejacket in sight!

Then there is the daily business of running a practice. We have found that practice teams are overwhelmed by data and deadline, trying to speak to them about something which is beyond a ‘must do’ is very hard, but not impossible. Our aim has been to frame involvement in commissioning in a way that doesn’t demand more time. Sounds simple when written down, in reality this is quite a tough nut to crack.

Foundation Trust Membership – it’s all a blur!

So far, 2012 has been the year of growing Foundation Trust memberships.  Our membership services team can attest to this.

So far, we have recruited around 40,000 members on behalf of our Foundation Trust clients.  Even with the drop dead date for Foundation Trust authorisation abandoned (to some degree) MES are seeing an ever increasing number of aspirant and authorised Foundation Trusts looking to recruit members to share in their journey.

Engagement in the Health Sector

This week’s blog takes a look at something very dear to our hearts at MES, public and patient engagement in the NHS.

As we draw into the hopefully anticipated ‘indian summer’ of 2012 I have been reflecting upon the people we’ve met, the conferences attended and the clients we have worked alongside so far this year.
 

Following the assent of the Health and Social Care Bill in March the precedent for patient and public involvement has never been greater. What’s more it has been set out as a whole domain (2) for Clinical Commissioning Groups to get to grips with. But without the rigid measures for engagement that are laid out for Foundation Trusts to guide them, many CCGS are wondering what effective engagement actually feels like.

Introducing the MES Blog

Today we're very excited to be launching our new blog with this grand inaugural message.  WELCOME!

We started tweeting this week too.  Social media is about to play a big part in our work here at Membership Engagement Services.  But first....

What is MES?  We're essentially a communications company with a particular focus on membership organisations.  We help our clients to link up and communicate better with their members, stakeholders, staff and local communities.  Lots of our clients are NHS Trusts but we work for other membership organisations too - trade unions, associations, institutes and corporate bodies.  We help with strategy, advice, and practical project delivery too; I never had much time for consultancies that offer the general advice, some of it a little obvious at that, without the tangible delivery too.

You can read our company philosophy here.

We're a subsidiary company of Electoral Reform Services - their focus being the impartial, expert and independent management of elections and ballots.

And what of this blog?  It will be a commentary, a resource and perhaps even a vaguely entertaining read about engagement.  We see the word bandied around willy nilly, organisations are encouraged to engage with us, Parliamentary Acts are passed that refer to public engagement, politicians speak of localism, community power and the big society ... although that particular phrase has quietened down somewhat this past 12 months or so.  And of course we have the word in our company name.

And now?  We'll be starting weekly for now.  More of the MES team will be contributing as time goes on.

So long for now.