Understanding the Modern NHS

Insight’s John Dennis tries to make sense of how the modern NHS actually works?

Recently, I was running a training session for people who work in Social Care.  They were aware that Government have a drive to “Integrate” Health and Social Care services.  Like most of us they were wondering when and if this drive would move beyond service integration and into structural merger.

We began to talk about how the NHS now functions in England and they all admitted to being pretty unclear about how their “partner” organisation works.  I tried to explain how the NHS works post the “Lansley” reforms – and frankly failed!  

The more I talked, the less clear they looked.

During a much needed coffee break, I was rather desperately thinking about how to bring some clarity to our discussion. Thankfully, I managed to remember, an excellent short video produced by the Kings Fund, called An alternative guide to the new NHS in England

By the time the course participants had returned from coffee I had logged on to YouTube and was able to play the video.

Well, the day was saved!  After just 7 minutes the group had a pretty good overview of the NHS and were able to work out how the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG's) related to NHS England and what the role of Commissioning Support Units are!

So, I take my hat of to the Kings Fund!  It’s a real achievement to bring some semblance of clarity to the workings of the modern NHS.  I wonder if they would like to have a go at how to travel from A to B, by train and do so at the lowest cost and by a reasonable route? 

Perhaps not. That may be a challenge beyond even the Kings Fund!

Meanwhile, if you want to get a better understanding of how the modern NHS works, I suggest you watch the attached clip. 

John Dennis

The Power of Authoring Tools

Vikki Miles investigates the world of Authoring Tools

To some people elearning is a magic word, heralding interactive screens and animations, embedded audio and YouTube video.  To others it strikes a deep seated fear in the pit of their stomach.  Whatever your feelings towards what elearning has to offer, it is a huge topic filled with wonder, creativity and fantastical development tools.

Elearning, when it is done well, is a very powerful learning medium. The problems arise when it is unplanned and thrown together.  Who benefits from a poorly planned programme? No one, and least of all the learner.

Tools for developing elearning have been gathering momentum over the last few years. Originally, it was all about animated PowerPoint slides, colours and jazzy fonts.  The content (and the learning objectives) were sometimes lost in the barrage of clipart, charts and images.  Now it is all about engaging the learner, giving them a media rich experience at the same time as depositing some learning into their attentive brain.

Animated PowerPoint slides you might say, "I can do that!", does that make you a elearning developer?  Not in this day and age, although starting out with solid PowerPoint knowledge will help.  Being a developer draws on multiple creative skills, solid IT knowledge and industry trends in elearning.

So when I started looking into the development (also called authoring) tools, which are now commercially available.  I had flashbacks to learning Visual Basic VI at University.  Let's get this straight, I'm not a developer, the very words 'writing code' bring me out in a cold sweat. Research and testing the tools was going to be a rocky road of discovery.

I've found the majority of tools fall into one of 3 categories;

• PowerPoint Plugin tools
• Desktop based software packages (Creative Suites)
• Server based online tools (sometimes referred to as collaborative authoring tools)

PowerPoint Plugins

These tools use PowerPoint as the authoring environment, but allow you to add interactivity; and to publish your content, packaged ready to track, in a learning management system. These are very easy to use as most people are familiar with PowerPoint. One of the most popular tools in this market is Articulate. Relatively cheap (still around the £500 mark), you buy a license and it's away you go. 

Desktop Tools

These are installed on your desktop and are generally more complex than the PowerPoint tools, but they give you more control over the style and interactions.  Examples of these tools include Adobe Captivate, Lectora and Articulate Storyline. Again, you have to buy these by the licence and if you have multiple people developing materials, the initial outlay can be expensive.

Server Based Tools

These tools are hosted on a server and are typically accessed via a browser over the Internet. They can be very easy to use and because they are server based you can easily control content, update materials and manage your files in one place. They are also good for collaborative and dispersed teams who can work on content together and review in one place. Examples of these tools include Coursebuilder, Mohive and Atlantic Link. The drawback is these tools are usually the most expensive of the three options (we're talking £1000s a year).

All these tools have their Pros and Cons - the biggest pull for me was being able to open it up and start using it straight away.  With this in mind I decided to test 3 tools:

• Adobe Captivate
• Articulate Storyline
• Udutu (free authoring server based software)

Adobe Captivate and  Articulate Storyline both allow pretty much full access 30 day trials, whilst Udutu is accessible and active after creation of an online account.

Some of the tools can be a bit hard to get started unless you have some prior knowledge in authoring.  I found this particularly evident with Captivate.  Very powerful tool, but hard to get screens created without a steep learning curve.  Captivate had a distinctive PowerPoint feel and whilst it was familiar I found myself stumped after a certain point.  This led to frustration and ultimately I decided this wasn't the tool for us.

Articulate Storyline, on the other hand was a breath of fresh air.  It was intuitive and within 20 minutes I was adding screen after screen with integrated animations, video and quizzes. The character bank was fantastic, with a choice of illustrated or photographic characters in various poses. Template screens were easy to create and your theme bank was also a helpful addition. In my humble, inexperienced opinion I thought it combined the power and usability which Captivate lacked. This might not be shared by the experienced developer community, but I liked it.

I was pleasantly surprised by Udutu - after all it is free to use. Costs come in when you want to remove their watermark or publish large scale programmes. They have page templates, media embedding and various publishing options. On the whole the tool was relatively easy to use, but the finished product definitely did not look as slick and professional as what I had created in Storyline. The saying, 'you get what you pay for' was appropriate in this case.

So what did I learn from all of this? My advice if you're thinking of getting into authoring programmes is as follows;

• Pick 3-4 tools and play around with them, get the trial versions and test out, thoroughly. 
• Research your tools but don't be swayed by expert opinions or reviews. With so many choices available, I think if you find a tool which works for you, then that's what you should go with. Forcing yourself to use something which feels 'clunky' just because the reviews say it's the best isn't going to get your creative juices flowing.  
• Plan ahead, work out a good structure for your programme and trial run it on a few people. Does it flow well? Does it make sense? Did it achieve the learning objectives? Getting your material straight before you start will save a great deal of development time. Read a few articles on the web about good practice in design and try out some free elearning modules. This will help you understand what works and what doesn't.

I hope you found this enlightening - I certainly came away with a healthy respect for elearning developers. Combining technical skills and creativity doesn't always come easily.

~Vikki

National Skills Academy CMM - Leadership on The Front Line

The National Skills Academy for Social Care (NSA) regularly circulate their CMM, and in it's latest edition, Insight are featured in a review of the Front Line Leaders Programme.

Insight have been key in designing the programme against the specifications identified by NSA, and Terry and Laura have been piloting the programme to 2 pilot groups of learners. This test period is now coming to a close and we're about to collate feedback, review materials and processes and take steps towards launching the programme on a wider basis. So far, feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and everything points towards the programme being rolled out.

As you may guess, we're incredibly excited!

Take a look at NSA's CMM, and hear from some of our learners and the other stakeholders involved.

Remember, the Front Line Leaders Programme could be rolled out to your locality in the near future, so get in contact if you think it could be for you! Contact leadership@nsasocialcare.co.uk to find out more!

Business Skills at The National Para-Driving Championships 2013

Insight’s Director Liza Pern recently attended the National Para-Driving Championships at Sandringham, in her role as trustee of the charity Sports Driving Unlimited.  A charity, supported by Insight, which enables people with disabilities to drive ponies and compete in both local and national competitions.  This is what she says about the event.

I’m starting to realise that many of the skills that I’ve learnt working with Insight over the years, and that we teach in our management training sessions, are widely transferrable into other diverse events and experiences!  A national carriage driving competition is a perfect example!  I recently supported three drivers with disabilities, their able bodied grooms and ten ponies at the National Para-Driving Championships in Norfolk.  The three grooms were also competing as able-bodied drivers in the event – hence the 10 ponies – a team (four), a pair, three single ponies and a single horse.  The logistics of getting the various ‘turnouts’ (ie. Pony, driver and carriage) to their required start positions at the right time was a real challenge.  Especially as the grounds of the venue, Sandringham House, are huge and start positions were miles apart!

So here were some of the skills employed over the weekend:

• Managing people (and ponies) – the logistics of persuading people to knuckle down to all the tasks required to get themselves and their ponies spruced up to the required standard for competition.  Oh and also reminding them to eat now and then to keep their blood sugar levels stable! 
• Communication skills – especially at 5am when the grooming and plaiting of manes had to start and tempers fray when sleepy ponies are less than cooperative.
• Meeting skills – keeping a diverse bunch of people with differing requirements on track around the table (usually over early breakfast) to ensure that jobs get done, and in time.
• Influencing and Empowerment skills – persuading the least interested of the team that the mucking out still has to be done regularly to keep competing ponies clean and that it’s a really important task, vital to the success of the competition, not just a slog.
• Delegation skills – with a team leader who is also competing delegating tasks to other members of the team was essential.

  
  

  

  
  
• Managing information – sorting out running orders and getting drivers and ponies to the right starting point at the right time.
• Problem Solving – what to do when an essential piece of kit is missing, or when a horse pulls a shoe just before going into the ring (thankfully a farrier was on hand!)
• Presentation skills – giving a short talk introducing the disabled drivers to the public whilst the actual results are searched for by the organisers!
• All the hard work was more than worth it as our young driver Charlotte finished as National Novice Para-Champion, and Graham was Reserve.  Both drivers are supported by the charity Sports Driving Unlimited and are now able to compete regularly both indoors in the winter, and outdoors in the summer. 

So trainees – never think that the management skills we teach you are only for the workplace – they have far wider relevance!

~ Liza

Insight to work with London Borough of Southwark!

After bringing you up to speed with who I am this month, I’ve got the taste for writing another blog. 

One of the big things on the radar when I joined Insight back in April was the potential of working on a large Management Development Programme (MDP) for the L.B Southwark.  During the first couple of meetings I had with John and Terry I realised winning this contract meant a huge amount to them.  Not only in terms of actual long term work, but the challenges it brings with it. Launching and delivering a programme which would shape the future leaders of such a prestigious London Borough is after all a huge responsibility.  The amount of trust an organisation places in a provider on awarding a contract is huge.  MDP’s are a chance to shape and influence the ongoing management strategy for years to come.  How the programme is delivered directly impacts the communities through the managers and supervisors.  It really feels like we make a difference. 

It doesn’t matter how much we would like to do the programme we have to win the contract by proving how Insight can deliver what the organisation is looking for.  My understanding of the tendering process is limited, but I know it can be very complex and involves getting all your ducks in row.  There’s the writing of expressions of interest documents, which have to convey how we can best fit the needs of the specification, what we can offer and how we can give them an MDP to be proud of.  There are evaluations, interviews and presentations to master.  Suffice to say it’s a team effort in collating everything in time to submit it. 

I was delighted that John and Terry included me on this tender as a member of the delivery team.  I was presented on paper to the stakeholder board as Project/Programme Manager, ILM Administration and tutor support.  A huge honour to be such as lynchpin in the support functions of delivering the programme.

After waiting a few weeks the news came that we had been shortlisted to the final two and the board wished to meet as many of the delivery team as possible.  I won’t pretend that I wasn’t just a little bit nervous about meeting the board.  If something stupid came out of my mouth, I would’ve hated to have cost us the contract.  John and Terry, of course, made sure we were all very well briefed and calmed the jitters.

I have to say I really enjoyed meeting the stakeholder board; they went out of their way to make it informal, it felt more like a focus group rather than an interview. It was really nice to see some old faces too.  Bob Chapple and Ruth Dover, both of who I’d worked with on various projects 7 years ago were at the meeting.  They helped to calm my nerves as well.  Laura did a sterling job of broaching the topic of equalities and inclusion, showing a video which went down really well with the panel. On the whole the meeting went well, but it was hard to gauge how we’d done.  Now we had to wait for the decision.

Thankfully Southwark didn’t keep us waiting too long and gave us the amazing news they were awarding us 2/3 of the contract.  To undertake the MDP for the Supervisors and First Line Managers, in my opinion the most exciting groups.  Training grass roots managers quite often means employing a wide range of techniques to have a real impact on culture change.  You can see immediate effects in the workplace on service delivery and in feedback from the communities they serve. 

Another huge win for us was the entire MDP is to be accredited by the ILM.  This means around 300 supervisors, first line and middle managers will all come out of the MDP with a tangible usable qualification.

This of course means for me a lot of work over the summer months getting to grips with project management.  But I do love to organise and plan!!

The other 1/3 of the contract was awarded to an organisation called Cygnet.  So a new challenge will be working in partnership to deliver a cohesive programme across the 3 levels of manager.

Exciting things on the horizon and great news I’m sure you’ll agree.

~ Vikki

A Brit Abroad!

Introducing Vikki, the newest addition to our Team!

Most of us at some point in our lives have wondered what it would be like to work and live abroad.  Interestingly a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) identified that 80% of recent university leavers want to work abroad at some point in their career.  When you are young with relatively few ties, working abroad can have huge benefits to your burgeoning career, giving you not only precious foreign language skills, but allowing you to live your personal dreams.  

Talking from personal experience, deciding to uproot your life when you have more commitments can be an emotional rollercoaster.  Let me share my story...

I was working for a local authority in a highly stressful role involving the Equal Pay Review for about 6000 employees.  We were lucky, my husband and I had good jobs, a house, a beautiful son and we lived in a beach town on the south coast.  Most would think our life was perfect, and to a degree it was.  Although I had always felt the need to spread my wings. Unlike a number of my friends and family I didn't jump on the gap year bandwagon and backpack my way across the places I'd seen in the Leonardo DiCaprio's film The Beach.  So the travel bug came back to bite me, and boy did it bite hard.  My husband worked for JPMorgan and after years of not quite making the progress he deserved, he approached a few contacts in the States (networking skills fully deployed!).  The testing of the waters paid off and after some internal wrangling, a trip to the US Embassy and 4 months we boarded the plane to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

It's not as easy as you think to just apply for a job abroad, especially in the USA. JPMorgan sponsored my husband and arranged for all the Visas and Embassy paperwork.  They even assigned a Relocation Specialist, although we had very minimal contact with them, it was nice to know we had one.  

Hurdle #1

One thing we could've done more advice about was relocation costs.   If you are lucky enough to be offered a role abroad, make sure you do your homework on how much it costs to move belongings , visit the country to look at housing and set up costs for renting a place to live.  My advice, whatever figure they offer you, go back and ask for double the amount. 

Hurdle #2

Swallow the cost and take up international bank account.  One little known fact, no matter how good your credit rating is, it is NOT transferable to the USA.  You arrive as a credit ghost.  The USA runs on credit, you cannot get any form of credit card, mobile phone contract or get decent rates on car insurance unless your credit rating is good.

The only way to get a good credit rating is to get credit and you can't get any credit without a credit rating - chicken and egg spring to mind.  At least with an international account you can get a credit card and access to expert help understanding the mountains of tax forms which are different for each state by the way!

Hurdle #3

HealthCare - yes we all moan about the NHS, you won't after spending anytime in the US healthcare system.  How anyone affords to pay for critical care I do not know. If your job comes with Health Insurance, find out someone who can explain in layman's terms what it covers and how much it costs.  Don't fall in to the trap of paying the lowest amount - you'll regret it when you get a bill from your doctor asking for $200 just for looking at your sore throat last week.  

Hurdle #4

Driving - do not expect US driver to wave you through a junction, give way (yield) or wait and allow you to parallel park on a main road.  It will not happen, you will find yourself wishing for British drivers, yes even the ones in white vans.

I could go on, but I may turn my experiences in to a best seller featuring starcrossed lovers with a fondness for dunkin donuts and S&M. Giving away all my material would be best seller suicide.  So I'm moving on to something more constructive...

The Workplace

Working in the US is very different to working in the UK. However, thank your lucky stars for your 20 days paid holiday and bank holidays.  In the US the average worker gets 10 days paid holiday in addition to the US bank holidays,  however not all of them are considered 'official' days by all companies so be warned.  You don't get paid sick leave, you have to earn it.  Some organisations may give you a bank of sick days (up to six days and 2 personal days.  Oh and on another note Boxing Day does not exist in the US, so booking it off is a must!

The workers in the US are broken up in to 2 main categories by the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) - Non Exempt (those who are paid an hourly rate and are eligible for overtime of 1.5 over 40 hours a week) and Non-Exempt (those who are paid a guaranteed salary and are not eligible for any overtime).

The rules about which jobs fail in to which categories are very complicated, but in general there are three typical categories of exempt job duties, called "executive," "professional," and "administrative."  It is likely as a graduate or professional you will be an exempt employee.  It is usually expected for an exempt employee to work 40+ hours a week, on average the real time spent at work is 55 hours.   Long days...

Most companies seem to pay bi weekly or weekly rather than monthly, personally I think this is a great advantage over the mostly monthly pay of the UK.  It allows for easier budgeting and not having to stretch money to the end of the month is always great.

Language

Be prepared to be asked the inevitable questions, "Are you from England?" and "Do you live in London?"  I would strongly suggest referring all UK geographical locations to their proximity to London.  On the other hand having an English accent works wonders for your profile.  People remember you, they’re interested and engaged.  This can be turned to your advantage, it’s a icebreaker of the biggest magnitude.  A standout accent can attract positive and negative attention so you should be aware of how and when to use it.

The People

On the whole we met the warmest people and made some amazing lifelong friends.  I think Americans get a bit of a raw deal; British folk tend to think of them of brash and arrogant.  I’m sure our reputation is no better.  There are always bad apples in a cart, accepting people for who they are is our biggest challenge as human beings.  Not everyone will get along, but that’s life.

So you’re probably reading this and thinking we didn’t enjoy our time in the US.  On the contrary, we are richer for the experience, more rounded and most importantly we followed our dreams.  Although I did rather miss chocolate hobnobs more than I thought I would.

~ Vikki

As Simple As 'ABC'

This month's guest blog is written by one of Insight's Associates, Ricky Coussins:

The post war years saw little to recommend them to any time traveller.  Rationing was still a part of daily life.  Spam and powdered egg was still on most menus. Much of the nation’s major cities were still bombed out.  Most of the population were struggling to come to terms with a new world order in which the British Empire was beginning to play an increasingly insignificant part. 

But someone somewhere was thinking about issues that concern modern marketers just as actively now as they had begun to then.  A group of the great and the good known then (and now) as the Joint Industry Committee for National Readership Survey– or JICNARS for short (catchy acronyms they had in those days) – was considering how to provide useful information to advertisers about readers of their publications.  They decided that it would be very helpful for advertisers to understand what their readership looked like in terms of socio-economic characteristics.  This way they could match their advertising space purchases to those publications and those readerships that they thought might be most likely to buy their product (or service).  That’s right.  Someone, somewhere had invented the idea of segmentation. 

In order to make this entirely clear to those product producers and advertisers, they decided that they would use alpha numeric segmentation labels that would relate to a group of characteristics.  So an A would be upper middle class and a B would be middle class.  The complete table looked a bit like this: 

Social  Grade	Social Status	Occupation
A	Upper middle class	Higher managerial, administrative or professional
B	Middle class	Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional
C1	Lower middle class	Supervisory or clerical and junior managerial, administrative or professional
C2	Skilled working class	Skilled manual workers
D	Working class	Semi and unskilled manual workers
E	Those at lowest level of subsistence	State pensioners or widows (no other earners), casual or lowest grade workers

It was pretty revolutionary and very clever stuff.  In fact it was so interesting, clever and well thought out that nascent marketers started to use these distinctions for other purposes. It had that instant appeal of being memorable, exclusive (you had to know to what it referred), logical and easy to understand once you were on the inside of it. 

And what’s wrong with that?  Nothing of course if you are a new bright young marketer living in the ‘never had it so good’ decade of the Beano and the Tiger, Radio Times and The Daily Sketch, holidays in Clacton, plain talking horny handed machine fitters, and folks running things ‘what know best for us’.  Those distinctions make a lot of sense for that social order.

The problem is that people are still using these terms today.  In the 21^st century when meritocracy rules, there is no machine to be a fitter for, Clacton holidays are an interesting historical phenomenon, where is the relevance? So why do people persist in referring to these segmentation characteristics?

Our modern world is far too complex for such simple social divisions. 

In one weekend I might eat at a McDonalds with the kids, have a pint and a pie at the local pub, take the family to a Harvester and then eat at the Complete Angler at Bray.  Yet each of those organisations, if they’re not careful, will see me as a simple mono dimensional code. 

We need to throw out the alpha numerics and replace them with other segmentation models as smart, clever and insightful companies have been doing for more than a couple of decades. 

So it’s time to begin to invent your own segments and segmentation criteria.  Ones that recognise where the world is now and where it is going and what that means to your customers and market places.  And we need to keep re-inventing them to keep pace with the fast changing social dynamics.

And if you are one of the all too many organisations still using these wholly outdated JICNARS socio economic demographics for any marketing purpose, well shame on you.  The world is all now a little too complex for that. 

Don’t believe me?  Well just take a look around your desk and tell me how many other tools you are using now which are more than 60 years old.  I rest my case. 

Time, boys and girls, to forget your ABC, because, as you know deep down, it’s never as simple as that.

For more from Ricky, see his blog and the Coussins Associates Website.