NHS Nottinghamshire County

In common with other Public Health teams across the country, Public Health in Nottinghamshire is facing complex system change against a backdrop of needing to deliver better health outcomes for the population. Over the last 12 months, the teams have been reduced and reorganized as a result of redundancies, of re-aligning teams under different Consultants, and in response to financial public service cuts. In April 2013, responsibility for Public Health will move from the NHS to local authorities; as a result, Nottinghamshire Public Health teams are expected to transfer fully to Nottinghamshire County Council.

NHS Nottinghamshire County approached Business Evolution to design, develop and deliver two comprehensive Public Health Organizational Development programmes to their seven teams and Leadership Team over a nine month period. The Public Health teams currently under NHS Nottinghamshire County and NHS Bassetlaw cover different facets of public health across Nottinghamshire.The primary theme across the development programmes was helping the Public Health teams to manage against a backdrop of transition, challenge and ambiguity. The programmes' objectives were to accelerate team building to help them come together as high performing teams in a new organization. Specific skills training was delivered for personal development, complemented by a facilitative approach to encourage integration into a new organizational culture.

Chris Kenny, Director of Public Health, NHS Nottinghamshire County, NHS Bassetlaw and Nottinghamshire County Council said "The development work undertaken by Business Evolution has made a very valuable contribution to the entire public Health function within Nottinghamshire County. At an individual level, staff feel more empowered and better able to lead their individual pieces of work on behalf of the organization. At a team level, the process has been invaluable as some of the teams were quite new and were not used to working together; input from Business Evolution has enabled them to understand each other’s roles as well as wider aspects of the organization, and has made them more able to see how their work fits into the overall public health function. For the directorate as a whole, the process has enabled us all to develop an overall corporate approach to public health, including values and principles that we work within, and how we all contribute to improving the public health function across the whole county."