The Changing NHS

I recently went to a meeting with a person I’d never met before. We were to discuss the design of a one-day workshop for all Chief Executives of Primary Care and Mental Health Trusts and Directors of Social Services whose organisations operated within the boundaries of a new Strategic Health Authority.

As we started our discussion it quickly became clear that the person I was meeting with was not the client. She had inherited the commitment to arrange the event from her predecessor, who, in turn, had been asked to ‘sort it out’ by a Director at the new Strategic Health Authority.

Although highly capable, experienced and personable, the person I was meeting with didn’t know all that much about the purpose of the event. It was certainly about trying to generate a shared commitment to a small number of new priorities for Mental Health services within the sector over the next few years. But beyond that? So after a while, we agreed to set-up a 3-way 30 minute conference call with the client the next day, to clarify purpose and ask a number of other questions that had cropped up. Our questions included:

• What’s the purpose of the event?
• Why are you choosing to hold it now?
• What do you think the participants will think about this workshop?
• Will participants be comfortable committing their organisation to any recommendations?
• To what extent will you be happy with identified priorities being different in different parts of the sector?
• What will happen next after the workshop?
• What role will the SHA play in managing the process after the workshop?

The conference call went well and we are now designing the workshop programme. So what? Why am I writing about this little story?

Well, it has just occurred to me that if the real client had been present at my meeting I would not have asked all these useful questions! I’d have enquired about purpose and probably also found a way to ask a couple of the other questions as our conversation progressed. But I wouldn’t have thought to ask them all and the client certainly wouldn’t have been so agreeable to play such a strong clarifying role.

Maybe I should try and introduce this ‘proxy client’ process into more of my work? But how could I accurately identify people who know just enough to be helpful? Perhaps I would be just as likely to find someone who knows just enough to be dangerous?

Steve

www.stevepashley.co.uk