Interim Leadership Case Studies

Mentor / Strategic Consultant

How it came about

A newly appointed Director of Children's Services (DCS), with a background in education, approached our Interim Leadership Practice to source someone to operate as a Mentor / Strategic Consultant. The DCS had worked with us on a number of occasions as both a client and a candidate, but up until that point had not worked with our Interim Leadership team.

The brief

Our client had inherited a service widely recognised to be performing well. However, on the social care side a few informal concerns around quality assurance and procedure were beginning to surface, and there was a need for someone with strong social care experience to undertake a diagnostic review.

There were also some established pooled commissioning arrangements with Health that needed reviewing to work for the children's service more effectively, requiring someone familiar with the interface with health partners.

Key to achieving this was the recruitment of an individual who had a track record of success, both substantively and as an interim manager, who could act both as consultant, and ‘critical friend' to the DCS and the service.

What we did

We received a detailed brief and then, from our extensive network, spoke to a very select number of interim consultants who we were confident had the required style and credentials (nationally and locally) for this confidential project.

We recommended that the authority work with someone who could be flexible with their availability (3-4 days per week down to a few days per month, over the course of a year). This suited those consultants with other commitments, typically non exec positions and independent commissions.

Many experienced interims with genuine track records are extremely well suited to mentoring assignments, bringing with them credibility and discretion so important for establishing trust.

The outcome

Of the three recommendations we made, our client decided to meet with our first choice. The meeting was extremely successful and an instant rapport and understanding was established between client and consultant.

From this experience a quite different picture soon began to emerge of how the consultant could work with the service, in terms of up-skilling existing SMT members, giving constructive strategic advice and objective service review and recommendations.

If you would like to learn more about how GatenbySanderson can help you, contact us on Leeds 0113 205 6071, London 020 7426 3960 or Birmingham 0121 644 5700.

Interim Programme Director – Workforce Development Strategy across multiple partners

Context

In the summer of 2008 GatenbySanderson were approached by the Director of Community Provider Services of a Thames Valley PCT to help them resource an interim to lead on a whole system workforce development project across health and social care staff and partners, involving the development of effective partnership working across multiple stakeholders.

Challenge

The key challenge of the project was to identify someone with the gravitas and experience who would be able to develop the mechanisms that would enable partners to work effectively together – this had never been achieved before! Crucial to the project’s success was the early establishment of executive sponsorship across the CEOs, the SHA and Skills for Health. The ideal interim would therefore need to be able to work effectively at Board level and to have a broad understanding of how the NHS and its partner organisations operated.

Actions

After a detailed discussion with the client, GatenbySanderson prepared a shortlist of recommended interims and interviews were arranged over a tight time period.

The appointed interim was a former Health Authority Deputy Chief Executive with a wide range of health and social experience gained within the UK across the NHS and Voluntary Sector and internationally from time spent with the Australian Health Commission.

Her role was to establish a strategic framework, partnership working, governance and funding mechanisms with health and social care commissioners, all NHS providers, voluntary and community sector, independent social care providers and education providers in order to develop and gain agreement on a work programme for the first year. Commissioning intentions for diabetes were aligned, a skills framework for new roles and a competency framework for aspects of the dementia strategy were developed and a whole system workforce strategy was scoped.

Outcomes

Despite the complexities of engaging with a large and diverse number of partners the Interim Programme Manager was able to establish a Programme Office and recruit and train a Programme team to carry the project forward. After six months the strategic direction of the project was agreed by all stakeholders and the interim’s role changed to become more of a critical friend and mentor to the Programme Board.

Tangible outcomes to date include:

• Working with FE Colleges to improve access to work in health and social care (both in direct care roles as well as support work e.g. IT, administration, finance etc)
• Workforce strategy plans that specifically look at barriers to entry to careers in health and social care for BME communities
• The diabetes workforce project specifically aimed to develop the competencies required of health professionals in primary care to deliver care to this population group

Interim Project Manager – Out of Hours Dental Services

Context

At the end of 2008 an inner London PCT approached GatenbySanderson to help them resource an Interim Project Manager to lead on the review of Out of Hours urgent Dental Care.

The existing capacity of the service was limited and was therefore having a detrimental effect on the overall oral health of the community living within the sector. The overall aim of the project was to improve both the access and quality of dental service provision and reduce the attendance of A&E patients requiring urgent dental care.

Challenge

As the review of services affected the population of 7 London Boroughs (3 inner and 4 outer) the key challenge for the project was to ensure that all the stakeholders had signed up to the review and were involved at all critical stages in taking proposals forward.

A highly experienced project manager with a deep understanding of the complexities of multiple stakeholder management across the NHS and with a firm understanding of public consultation processes and communications was therefore sought.

Actions

After initial recommendations a small number of interviews with suitably experienced interims were arranged.

The appointed Project Manager was a former Regional Director of CPPIH with a strong background of community engagement across health, local government and the voluntary sector.

As a clear governance structure with a senior sponsor was needed to ensure decisions were carried forward, the interim Project Manager began by developing a Senior Project Board and Steering Group who then had the responsibility of overseeing the review and ensuring all stakeholders, Clinicians, Commissioners, staff and users could be involved and were able to make suggestions for improvement.

Additionally as the services needed to be procured with one PCT as lead commissioner, it was important that staff delivering the present services were supported throughout the review and understood the impact of the proposals whilst continuing to deliver urgent dental care services.

Outcomes

The review is currently at final stages of consultation but some of the anticipated outcomes are:

• Improved access to urgent dental care across the North East Sector
• Those patients who need referral are referred to the appropriate service to meet their needs
• Reduced attendance at A&E of patients requiring urgent dental care
• Reduced numbers of patients accessing GPs, Walk In Centres with dental need across North East London
• Urgent Dental Service works within a ‘whole system’ approach to providing urgent dental care in the sector by ensuring effective interfaces and consistent protocols between primary care dental services and all urgent dental care services within the sector
• Changing behaviours of patients that do not attend dentists regularly