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Photo : DeclanTM, Flickr

In 2010, Attractor identified some challenges for the future of the NHS Electronic Staff Record (ESR), in particular suggesting the changing strategic picture in the NHS would have a big impact on deployment and implementation of additional features. While the “new look” NHS seems very slow to materialise, a world of increasing decentralisation and delegated authority must call into question the suitability of a national IT solution.

In a sign that Attractor wasn’t alone in identifying this question, the Department of Health wrote to NHS organisations recently, stating a late 2010 review had supported the concept of retaining and expanding the ESR solution from 2014 onwards.

While this strategy will undoubtedly require an appropriate  competitive process at the end of the existing contract, but it seems clear those actively managing the system and the contractual relationship with McKesson consider ESR has a long-term future.

From January through to June 2011, most NHS users of the ESR system will have experienced a major overhaul in the way the system looks and feels as well as significant enhancements in the solution’s functionality and “reach”.

As well as introducing a whole new look for core application users – which has generally been received positively – there are important additional features being introduced for learning management and administration, solutions to many user-identified problems and a move to switch all NHS organisations over to use of smartcards for controlling access to staff records.

These features and the parallel development of the National Learning Management Solution (NLMS) demonstrate the clear view of some who retain the vision that a national IT solution can be an important strategic enabler for the NHS. Unfortunately for many NHS teams, these new challenges have had to be managed at a time when available resources from the Department of Health and locally have been under increasing pressure and some have found it very difficult to make progress with some of the expanded functionality.

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At the Efficiency and Reform conference held on 25th November 2010 at the Barbican in London, Attractor led a Masterclass for public sector managers. The discussion considered how to respond to the twin challenges of financial constraints arising from the recent Comprehensive Spending Review plus increasing localism within the Coalition Government’s Big Society agenda.

It was recognised there were inherent challenges of localism, including stresses arising from local political action and the potential for increasing variation and a “postcode lottery” in service provision. There were also complications, legal, financial and contractual in withdrawing from existing public services and “spinning out” services into new mutual or social enterprise organisations.

It is vital to recognise successful change programmes addressed change “in-depth”, tackling technology, processes and people, paying attention to all the technical issues, while also addressing issues in business process design (task value and sequencing) while working to engage people to build understanding and attitudes of people.

But how can this be done? Read the rest of this entry →

Photo: DeclanTM, Flickr

Attractor was recently asked to support an NHS Foundation Trust with ambitions to deploy both manager and supervisor self-service across the organisation.

Using the self-service toolkit available within Electronic Staff Record (ESR), the NHS integrated human resources and payroll solution, the plan forms part of the organisation’s corporate improvement programme.

Attractor will be providing project consultancy support for the Trust’s management team throughout the life of the project. With support arrangements agreed in principle and the project team beginning to form, work started quickly to develop a robust and detailed project plan.

Activities in the plan will ensure all systems and technical issues, business process review and the stakeholder, communication and other change issues arising are appropriately addressed. This will help the organisation to acheives it’s objectives and secures the maximum possible benefits from implementing new tools.

With preparations for implementation now getting underway, the next key stages of work will involve planning for both anticipated business process review and effective actions to secure benefits realisation.

In the past, UK organisation were stereotyped by their slashing of training budgets when finances were tight – and then suffering the skills shortages which followed.

A new stereotype might be organisations looking to make efficiencies and reduce expenditure in their back-office functions so they can protect front line services.

Across the public sector, this “mantra” is being widely and loosely used without being explained in detail.

Real dangers exist where the implications of change are poorly thought through.

In richer times, it is easy to make the case for investment in services which support staff delivering effective front-line services. When times are hard, this is more difficult and its vital then, more than ever, to demonstrate how corporate teams impact on the business.

When organisations are looking to reduce expenditure, it is common to look for reductions in “overheads” – costs which can be reduced with little impact on front line services. Corporate back-office functions look “vulnerable” in this climate.

Organisations should always strive to ensure they are working in the most effective way – the optimum value between expenditure and achieving required outcomes. Back-office functions should be scrutinized as closely as other areas though it’s vital to keep a focus on what will maximise value rather than simply “reduce expenditure”. Read the rest of this entry →

Front line managers in NHS Trusts have to deliver the optimum deployment of staff to deliver high standards of patient care while avoiding wasteful expenditure.

Using paper or spreadsheets to deliver this involve significant time-consuming and wasteful administration for front-line managers and back office teams alike.

Attractor was asked to help an NHS Trust prepare and plan for a new rostering project – aiming to ensure the organisation would acheive key objectives.

Rostering, Time and Attendance Solutions have the potential to deliver significant strategic and financial benefits to organisations. But delivering those benefits is not easy … they won’t materialise automatically from simply rolling out new tools to all teams and departments. It takes much more than this. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo: Darren Hester, Flickr

NHS managers looking at our benchmarking solution have described how they will use it to plan and monitor local actions in response to the challenge of the NHS Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention initiative (QIPP).

A Payroll Manager explained it would enable him to demonstrate how service plans would adjust the profile of the organisation changing high level and detailed performance data.

As well as providing an evidence-base for improvement planning, the tool would enable them to meet the recommendations of the Operational Efficiency Programme, collating relevant information and providing comparison data to inform their decisions.

The solution has been created specifically for NHS organisations (versions for other part of the public sector or on the drawing board). Back-office benchmarking is new for the NHS and, obviously, depends on having significant volumes of data from relevant organisations to provide comparative information.

While still at an early stage in its service lifecycle – only just moving from planning to delivery – the early signs are promising. Already, 60% of the NHS organisations which evaluated the service have subscribed while others are still considering their position. No organisation having reached this point has, yet, decided not to subscribe.

Attractor is now marketing the service widely for the firs time and expects sufficient sign-up from NHS organisations to provide subscribers with authoritative, persuasive and compelling evidence to support local decision-making. Read the rest of this entry →

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Attractor’s work with a number of NHS organisations has helped to support and deliver improvement activity and realise benefits.

Attractor is often invited to facilitate strategic thinking, present options, identify opportunities, validate some ideas and challenge others.

This was the case with Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. A case study published by the Department of Health provides a good example of work delivered with an NHS team with strategic plans supported by decisive action.

Attractor had worked with Aintree earlier, supporting diagnosis and problem-solving actions with the Trust, and helping refine plans for deploying the ESR training administration toolkit.

Attractor was asked to support an organisational design review – taking forward local ambitions to introduce more integrated working arrangements and effective service delivery. Read the rest of this entry →

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Attractor Consulting was established in 2006 with a guiding principle that transformative change is best achieved by facilitating meaningful conversations, effective sharing and learning from experience.

We consider effective sharing and learning are vital to support well-informed local decision-making.

To enable conversations and exchange to take place even more widely, we have just launched the Attractor Learning Network.

Going beyond the capacity of our existing consultancy intervention and support work, the Attractor Learning Network provides a free toolkit allowing HR and Payroll practitioners to share thoughts, ideas and suggestions, join interest and discussion groups, contribute to open conversations and send private messages, sharing information to help each other. Read the rest of this entry →

With Attractor’s benchmarking toolkit having gone live, a thorough review of screens and features has generated a short “snagging list”.

Some minor corrective actions (none of which impact data collection) are being addressed by Attractor’s technical partner, KPMD IT solutions.

While corrections are addressed, users will experience few access issues and, once complete, potential consistency, usability and presentational issues will be avoided.

Attractor is now working to load a range of external benchmarking material from published sources in the UK and US covering private sector and public sector organisations in healthcare, local and central government plus other sectors. Read the rest of this entry →

Attractor has just completed work with an NHS organisation implementing its first “self service solution”.

The new toolkit provides online expenses claims and authorisation workflow for front-line teams.

Like all NHS organisations, it was important to integrate systems and process management with the ESR solution.

The client needed to tighten expense controls, streamline business processes, improve policy and legal compliance, reduce opportunities for fraud and improve the speed of reimbursement. Read the rest of this entry →