Dear candidate,

Thank you for your interest in the Chief Delivery Officer role at Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board.

Fifteen months on from our establishment, we are proud to have built a reputation as one of the fastest improving systems for delivery. The impact of the pandemic on access to treatment in Birmingham and Solihull was profound. Since then, we have pioneered collaborative ways of working that enable us to consider delivery challenges together in a one team one system approach.  This way of working has seen us deliver on our plans throughout last winter and though the regular industrial action.

We have seen integration become the foundation of our decision-making, supporting health and care across Birmingham and Solihull to innovate, transform and meet the needs of our staff, patients, and communities. We have seen success in tackling our delivery challenges, moving from one of the most challenged systems on a whole range of metrics, to one of the better performing in areas such as elective recovery. We have established a reputation for grip on delivery and have taken the time to share our ways of working with other systems. I could not be prouder of all of our staff who have been involved in, and often spearheaded, these monumental efforts.

Recognising the level of delivery challenge within our system, the ICB led the establishment of our System Oversight Group (SOG) chaired by our Chief Delivery Officer. SOG is an established forum where we manage emerging and current risks across our system, looking at risks as a system and working together to put in place mitigating actions and solutions. As the SOG has matured, it has become clear how valuable and innovative this process is. It is the forum through which we have been able to successfully and drastically reduce long waiting times for elective care.

Through forums like the SOG, we have been able to work as a system using one shared set of data to support decision making. We acknowledge that with data sometimes comes issues of contemporaneousness, but it has been hugely valuable to have a system working to one consistent picture. More recently, a number of other systems have approached BSol to share our approach.

The Chief Delivery Officer role is critical to our future service change and transformation journey. In recent months we have developed a refreshed System wide service change process that aligns with our 5-year Joint Forward Plan (link) and our emerging Community Engagement Framework. This role will lead the implementation of that service change process across our system.

Key to this role, and a dependency to achieving the transformation we want to see, is the delivery of our digital strategy. The post holder will lead a small and capable team within the ICB to  implement the strategy across our system as well as spearhead engagement with key local, regional, and national partners.

As our lead for delivery, the successful candidate will have a critical role in the planning and management of our response to winter, industrial action and other periods of increased patient demand. Throughout the last twelve months, we have developed successful ways of working to plan and mitigate against the disruption caused by these periods, always ensuring that we are prioritising urgent and emergency care and working collaboratively with colleagues in our providers to ensure patient disruption is kept to a minimum.

We were the first ICB in the country to publish an Inception Framework, a document which set out before our formal establishment our vision for the most radical overhaul in the way health and social care services in Birmingham and Solihull are designed and delivered. We followed this with our Operating Framework, which set out our strategic priorities and new ways of working for health and care in our system. Earlier this year following an extensive period of engagement, our integrated care partnership published its vision for the future and the improvements that we want to see over the next ten years for everyone who lives, works and receives care within our system. The simple aim of the strategy is to improve life expectancy for the people of Birmingham and Solihull.

Throughout our first year, we have been presented with a number of challenges, some expected and some not and I am proud to say that throughout we have always grasped the nettle, taken the difficult decision and done the right thing for patients and staff. This comes from a foundation of a brave and confident leadership group who are comfortable working together.

We are creating an open, inclusive and transformative culture within the ICB. In June this year we held our first all staff away day, iterating on our values and celebrating long serving staff. In our first set of staff survey results, staff told us about issues of workload and a lack of opportunities for face-to-face engagement and we have openly worked with our senior leadership team to begin to address these concerns. The next year will see us relocate to new offices, creating an exciting opportunity for us to improve the working environment for staff.

Every senior leader within Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board has been tasked with developing a high performing team and with demonstrating compassionate leadership. Against a backdrop of some of the greatest set of challenges we have ever faced, it has never been more important to treat each other well and establish a culture of respect and healthy challenge.

For all of our good work in our first year, we need to recognise the real difficulties that likely lie ahead. Over the next 24 months, we can expect significant challenges in access to services and to continue to grapple with the disruptive impact of industrial action. There will be a real push to deliver efficiencies across the system and a need to do everything we can to achieve financial balance at a time of rising and fluctuating cost pressures and increased scrutiny. And if we are going to realise our ambitions to transform services, we need to deliver a noticeable step change in our retention and development of front-line staff within our system.

All of this work and more has been underpinned by a consistent and conscious effort to tackle not only our challenges, but to address and eradicate the inequalities in provision and outcomes which we see in so many places across Birmingham and Solihull. This is not a quick fix, but something we, as a system, are committed to, recognising the importance of ensuring our diverse communities have access to services which meet their needs.

Finally, I believe passionately in the power of team working whether that is within the ICB (the executive team has a team coach), with peers across the ICS (the chief executive’s group have a team coach) or a strong and positive relationship with colleagues in other local ICBs or within NHS England. All shortlisted applicants will therefore be asked to undertake a Prophet role profiling a tool to support high performing executive teams. This is increasingly being used across our health care system for senior leaders to better understand how they can contribute and work together (it has been used by the chief executive group and across a number of provider executive teams  as well as the ICB executive and senior leadership team).

For all these reasons and more, it is an exciting time to join our System and I hope you will consider applying.

Best wishes,

David

David Melbourne
Chief Executive
NHS Birmingham and Solihull