© 2015-16 http://jfi.training | Strictly Confidential – not for distribution Case Study – ‘Newlands’

© 2015-16 http://jfi.training | Strictly Confidential – not for distribution Case Study – ‘Newlands’ Newlands is a hospital in the middle of Ireland and has always held the reputation for being one of the most innovative and advanced in the field of mental health and community health. Key facts: ? The hospital itself employs 867 staff, and also has seven residential establishments which employ a further 184 staff. ? While the hospital deals with acute care medical cases, the residential homes provide care for up to 86 elderly patients and social care services back in the community or approximately 300,000 patients across a large geographical area. ? Newlands has a long standing reputation in the community and offers great opportunities to provide an extensive range of excellent health and social care services designed to meet users’ needs, both now and in the future. There are plans for changes to the way health and social care is organised, and therefore Newlands needs to review and improve its working practices, procedures and policies to ensure that it is able to retain its independent status. This, however, is in doubt and many of its staff have become very used to their own ways of doing things and are reluctant to change their behaviour. If this is not addressed, it could be its downfall unless all roles are reviewed and adapted to meet the changing demands. In addition to this, the Regional Health Board (RHB) recently introduced a requirement for all administrators to attain a new level 4 qualification in office administration by the end of 2016. This is to better support the clinicians and managers in their busy roles and also to raise the standard of professionalism amongst all administrative staff. Raising professional standards in quality, cost and time management are essential elements for running a cost effective service whilst also building patient confidence in the range of health and social care provided. RHB have also issued targets for reducing patient complaints and to ensure that those received are brought to completion within 30 days. Newlands has made a commitment to raising the standard of professionalism amongst its entire workforce, including the clinical and managerial staff, and as such Newlands CEO and Executive Board wants the HR department to start delivering a series of professional training courses on a wide range of subjects to further support this message. Internally, there is already a huge online library of information available to staff on the hospital intranet. This includes all the hospital policies and procedural documents, minutes from meetings and Board reports. The quantity of information is extensive, however, the resource is poorly used and many clinicians and managers cite lack of time to use these as well as they might. © 2015-16 http://jfi.training | Strictly Confidential – not for distribution Appraisal and personal development courses are run within the hospital but not in the residential homes, however, attendance is low and take up of the appraisals themselves by managers is very poor. In 2015 Newlands carried out a review of their appraisal processes, and discovered that: ? Only 15% of staff had been offered an appraisal during 2014/2015 ? Inconsistent approaches by managers and clinicians towards appraisal with some senior clinical staff receiving this but junior staff being ignored ? Concerns about the high level of absence and sickness amongst the managers ? Staff lacked a true understanding of how they were being supported and developed in their roles and many said they didn’t see their managers on a regular basis At present there is no formal system for monitoring appraisal or for managing support to managers and clinicians therefore, to improve the take up, a new policy has been developed by HR and sent round to all for reading and compliance. The target is to increase the current number of appraisals being undertaken by 60% within the next 12 months. In April, a new Clinical Director came into post and promptly started to review the approach to clinical development alongside introducing a new competency matrix aligned to the expected performance and skill levels of the clinicians. A key issue highlighted by his initial scoping was the lack of a structured career progression as often when reaching the top of their professional area, clinicians are moved into a managerial role resulting in less clinical time and more managerial admin time (80/20) – many resent this shift and Newlands are starting to lose good people externally to other parts of the healthcare system. This conclusion was supported by both poor scores (and poor returns) on the annual ‘Reaching Your Potential’ employee satisfaction survey, and perceived lack of fairness around existing development opportunities for clinicians, managers and other administrative staff. The Clinical Director feels that career management needs to be more structured and transparent, and would be perceived more positively if it could be brought to life as part of a whole coaching culture aligned to career development. He would like to put in place a training course that better identified and developed staff (clinical and non-clinical). The CEO and the Board would like to better safeguard the future of Newlands and its independent status; however they recognise there is much to be done and unclear about where to start to make quality improvements and change. The board asks you to make some recommendations about how learning and development could improve the qual i ty of thei r processes and encourage the demotivated workforce to bet ter embrace the changes that are coming. You need to suppor t your recommendations wi th academic reading and ci tations to give your suggestions some strength.