When a health leader decided to pull together a team of frontline health and social care professionals, to explore what an integrated approach might look like, the aim was to break away from the restrictions of the current organisation – and be allowed to explore what would happen if the team could create a way of working around the citizen.

Systems thinking was used to underpin the approach, and a design methodology that allowed experimentation into this new way of working. The team could then decide what to take from the experiment that would inform the new way of working.

Results of this work would see service effectiveness go up, whilst resources reduced – as long-held practices and beliefs were overcome.

The session included real story-telling of a complex narrative in action and a video about the transformative work.

The speaker of this session, John Mortimer, spent 20 years re-designing services and organisations – moving beyond bureaucracy and ‘command & control’ with systemic design. Members of the team itself that did this pioneering work also joined the session.

John shared what the essentials are to have in place when undertaking this level of change, and shared outcome measures that demonstrated real impact.

This session:

• helped to widen the boundaries of what we believe is possible with change
• allowed us to see the different levels of change that are required.
• helped us understand how we approach learning and a new approach to the traditional forms of change
• shared outcomes that demonstrate the efficacy of such change.

This Zoom was organised by Q’s Reimagining Health and Care SIG 

Watch the recording

Integrated Health & Social Care – designing around the citizen (Devon case study)