Managing the unpredictability of project management!
Pia shares her journey designing and rolling out the Redbridge “Enhanced Homecare” pilot and the challenges and learnings she experienced along the way.
We are delighted to have obtained clinical sign off for the Enhanced Homecare pilot in Redbridge. It’s a project that we’re really passionate about as it focuses on improving the way that recipients of homecare receive help when they are feeling unwell.
We are particularly excited to see the implementation happen with our partners in Wanstead & Woodford especially as getting to this point wasn’t straightforward, with many setbacks along the way.
Anyone working in a project environment will be able to attest that setbacks aren’t uncommon in the project world but there can still be a feeling that we – the project team – have failed.
As a project manager, I have worked in different environments including my local city council, a cruise ship, financial auditing and vertical farming before I finally landed in the health and social care sector. Whilst the industries I’ve worked in may not seem like they have any similarities, all projects I’ve ever led have one thing in common: their unpredictability.
At Care City we acknowledge that not all projects work out the way originally intended and we work hard to identify and share learnings from our work, putting provisions and processes in place, so we don’t repeat what hasn’t worked.
Enhanced Homecare – the beginnings
Care City was awarded funding by the North East London Integrated Care Board (ICB) in 2022 to progress a concept of supporting homecare staff to spot early signs of deterioration in their clients and improve the escalation path to ensure quicker responses.
The idea came about as a result of many conversations with homecare providers from which we heard about the different challenges that care professionals experience on a day-to-day basis when delivering care for people in their homes. These included a lack of escalation guidance, communication barriers between health and social care and a lack of preventative care.
In collaboration with two local care providers, as well as partners at NELFT and London Borough of Redbridge, we designed different solutions to address these challenges which include:
Our recipe for a successful implementation
Whilst implementing these solutions, other operational challenges arose: concerns over increased workloads from Primary Care and delays in approving information governance and clinical risk documents at the ICB led to significant project delays.
My view is that a project coming to a standstill or losing momentum does not mean that it failed. The idea behind a pilot is to see whether it has the potential to be successful and when we find that a pilot isn’t successful yet, our learnings enable us to adapt and improve and develop new iterations to strive to find a model for success.
What helped us to overcome these project challenges was having:
- Appropriate data protection, ensuring that patient data is kept safe by putting the relevant precautions in place in the form of data sharing / processing agreements between parties.
- Sufficient funding to invest in monitoring technology and training and capacity to support project long-term especially if challenges crop up.
- A team of engaged stakeholders with a strong shared vision. This group with representation from the local authority, the local foundation trust, health and social care services and social care providers, would regularly meet to plan and problem-solve. Since restarting the implementation, we have also included primary care colleagues, the clinical lead and the commissioning team in those conversations.
Working together drives us further towards our ambitions of a more integrated care system. Thank you to those that invested their time, skill and knowledge to the Enhanced Homecare pilot.
- North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT)
- Health and Social Services (HASS)
- London Borough of Redbridge (LBR)
- Homecare providers Apasen and Diversity in Seven Kings, Redbridge
- Whzan for making the Blue Boxes and for providing us with tech support every step of the way
- Integrated Care Board (ICB) in North East London to award us the funding for rollout of this pilot
- Wanstead & Woodford PCN, as well as local homecare providers Kare Plus and GA Professional
A belief in this integrated care model is shared with care colleagues in Devon, who we are now supporting with the implementation of a similar model. Read more…
