Symposium 6 - Teamwork and Staff Engagement

When asked, most people will answer the question "why did you go into healthcare?" with "because I wanted to make a difference". Yet once in the work force, this often becomes increasingly difficult due to overburdened systems, lack of sufficient staff, poor morale....the list can go on. The research tells us that joy at work and workplace safety is inextricable linked to patient safety yet we have historically viewed these domains as separate entities. During this presentation we will go on a journey together to examine the current state of workplaces and what can be done to bring back the joy we felt as we started our careers We will take a side trip to discuss how we can best support out colleagues when healers become wounded. And finally, we will learn how we will know when we get there.

Across the world, countries are attempting to join together patchworks of fragmented primary, community, hospital and social services into more coherent health and care systems. In the English NHS, groups of local healthcare providers are attempting to reduce duplication between services, to make better use of staff and resources, and to improve coordination between related services. The opportunities for improvement are enormous. If we ensure access to high quality primary care services, we solve in a stroke the problem of inappropriate attendance and hospitals’ accident and emergency departments. If we ensure that patients with renal failure attend their community dialysis appointments, we avoid the huge costs of emergency dialysis treatment. However, it is also true that progress in unlocking these efficiencies has been slow, in part because of the need to coordinate between many different organisations with competing interests and priorities. This presentation highlights some common features of highly effective integrated systems which have allowed them to integrate care across services. These include the leadership, vision and culture of these local systems as well as their financial and contractual ‘wiring’ and their infrastructure to support learning and improvement. 

Before we can engage colleagues, in the speaker’s opinion, we should admit that there is real crisis in physician morale. Over half of physicians are burned out. This affects everyone. The lecture has been dedicated for anyone who has to lead people on a daily basis, and in particular in a busy workplace like Hospital Authority. 

There is sharing of tools - well-known and not so well-known - that will remind us to bring people to work for purpose. Don’t expect straight answers. Expect food for thought.

To allow the growth of a team with the gut and heart to fight long and hard, we wish to foster a mindset to admit burnout is the leader’s business (and our fault). Leadership commitment is vital.