The business of delivering specialist services

Meet Dan, he’s the Business Manager for our specialist services which are healthcare services for specialist communities (such as prisoners, detainees in custody, the homeless and asylum seekers), or specialist conditions (such as dental, podiatry, MSK, healthy living, mental health).

Dan has shared with us what his role as a business manager entails…

Dan collecting an award at the
LCH Achievement Awards in 2014.

Tell us, what does your job involve?

I am a key link for our services with commissioners. I ensure we have fair contracts that are value for money, that are well specified and that have effective and realistic performance measures. I help services compete for new business or compete to retain their existing business when it goes out to tender. I manage the innovation and business change functions so that services are supported to innovate, improve and embed any changes.

What attracted you to this role?

I've always worked in healthcare and had got into quite strategic roles which felt detached from services and real people. I saw this role advertised and had worked with York Street Practice in a past life and had enjoyed it so I thought I would give it a go. It's a very busy and challenging role, I've never worked so hard in my life! However, it is extremely rewarding as I can see how I am impacting on healthcare for real people despite not being a clinician myself.

What is the best bit about doing your job?

No day is the same. I get to go all over the city, meeting all sorts of people. I'm often working with services that have problems but this doesn't get me down as I feel that I am helping them overcome issues or barriers.

Do you have a particular highlight from your career to date?

I think it was when we won the very first NHSE 'Excellence in Public Participation' award last year. It was for a piece of work where we collaborated with homeless and asylum seeker clients at York Street Practice to improve how they access services and as part of this we won some funding so that patients could use digital technology to manage their own healthcare. When we went to collect the award for this innovation we got to take service users with us. It was extremely powerful and so rewarding to have national acclaim for what was essentially a very simple project. Also when we won the police custody bids it was so exciting - it was hard to believe that months of hard work and late nights had paid off and it made me extremely proud to work for LCH and to have been part of that team.

How has your past experience helped with your role?

I did a Communications degree back in the day so people often think it's weird I've ended up with the job that I do in the NHS. However, the key competency I need for my day to day working is communication skills and the ability to form effective relationships, so perhaps it wasn't such a waste of time after all! I also did a lot of voluntary caring roles at university which made me realise early on that I wanted a career in the NHS and not in the cut throat media industry!

If someone was thinking of joining the trust in a similar role, what advice would you give them?

Regardless of whether a role in LCH is clinical or managerial we need people who have the right values and who have good people skills - if this is you then do come and work for us. We can train people in all manner of skills and knowledge areas but we cannot train you in the values - this has to be core to you. If you have our values then get in touch!

If you would like to join our team, click here for our latest roles being advertised. 

Day at the Opera

On Monday 7 July we attended the annual NHS Organisational Development conference - DoOD. This saw 200 staff from the NHS gather to look at the issues and direction of organisational development (OD). It was a great event, which featured Professor Michael West and Dr Pat Oakley as keynote speakers. It was good to meet or re-meet colleagues such as Paul Taylor from NHS Employers, Karen Dumain from the NHS Leadership Academy and Dr Maxine Craig from Sunderland University. We were happy that colleagues from our own organisation, LCH could also join the conference.

We were to present the after lunch session on 'Finding Our Voice'. We did this work with Tracey Gray, Head of Head of Education at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals and her daughter, Victoria. Tracey shared her personal and professional story of vulnerability, growth and finding her voice. She then introduced her daughter as her inspiration and 'rock'. Victoria emerged from the back of the room and started to sing from 'Carmen'. Victoria is an opera singer and went through the audience singing. She then, from the stage, shared her story of vulnerability and finding her voice. The audience were then invited to find their voice and Victoria led us in singing the chorus from the opera, 'Carmen' by Bizet.

We spoke to the audience about how we can create the cultures to find our voices and support staff to grow. We started to outline what good OD work looked like. There were three things OD practitioners could do and were doing. The first was visibility. To go out into the highways and byways of the service and talk and engage with staff. To be a presence that offered options, hope and possibilities. The greatest thing we can offer another is our own self and an OD practice that doesn't offer this has both missed the opportunity and lost the heart of the work. The second was vision. The call was to let a vision inspire us and then let others hear our passion and catch the fire. Movements for deep cultural and organisational change will not emerge from weighty documents but where individuals and groups see a vision and ignite it in others. The third was making the space for the voice of the staff. OD practitioners had to be able to create a positive circle and invite others into it for the OD dialogue to start and spread. This work created the ever increasing circles, like a rock thrown into a pond, drawing in more hearts and minds into making compassionate OD a reality. We then spoke of how we can create the cultures where OD can flourish and grow. 

The basic message was that culture doesn't fall ready made from the heavens. It is constructed and made by all of us and therefore we all hold in our hands an awesome power. We can create the best or worst cultures. Every time we open our mouth we create culture. Every time we act we create culture. The challenge was to be the best people and staff we can be. We might sometimes miss the mark but our work for best practice and best culture would bear fruit and make these things start to happen. 

It came down to - if we want the most inclusive and supportive cultures we need to be truly inclusive and supportive. We need to make the difference every day for the better. We ended by asking the audience to talk with people on their tables about what conversations they should have 'to make the difference for the better' in their practice and services.

We ended by offering the acronym OPERA as a sign of great OD work.


   O - Open to Possibilities

   P - Persistence

   E - Emotion and Passion

   R - Receiving and Giving Feedback

   A - Awareness of Self and impact on others

When we think of the conference this was what resonated in the speeches and also in many of the private discussions too. OPERA is an OD charter. It calls us to be what we are and can be. To be flexible to options and opportunities. To not see organisational life as a static fixed entity. To see, as Hegel the philosopher would, reality and organisations as in movement and development. To see life and where we work as dynamic realities which we can work in and direct. We can only be open if we are humble and create a space for the richness of others. We need to be a people of patience and persistence. Rome was not built in a day and cultures will not be changed by next Tuesday. We need to be a people of passion and commitment working for a cause greater than ourselves. The feedback and awareness are really key here. We are not called to be lone ranger figures riding into town to sort out the bad guys. We need a deep awareness of our own weak points. This is about 'us' not 'them'. This can demand radical honesty, deep and authentic self-reflection and the courage to start to change oneself. Big stuff really but then the best OD is transformation not tinkering.

The presentation had a quote from the great Dr Viktor Frankl - 'When we are no longer able to change the situation - we are challenged to change ourselves'. This is an interesting enigmatic statement. Maybe Dr Frankl was pointing to a secret but not stating it. The secret is - if we change ourselves the world will change and we will find that either the situation has resolved or we are able to deal with it in new and better ways. The conference was for us all about the power, potency and possibility we all hold in our hands. One person tweeted that she had realised she was holding power, potency and possibility as a result of her learning at the conference. That's the message and the means. We hope - we really hope - we can use these incredible energies wisely and kindly for this service that means so much to us. A big thank you to all who made this conference possible.

Steve Keyes, Head of Organisational Development, Leeds Community Healthcare

John Walsh, York Street Health Practice, Leeds Community Healthcare