Peter Mumford with colleague, Ray Flux, were commissioned by a consortium of the King’s Fund, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Help the Aged, Age Concern and seven other national charities to facilitate a series of eight national conferences.

The purpose of the conferences was to gather the views of older people, policy makers and service providers on who will pay for social care for older people in the future. The aim was to raise awareness and influence national policy.

EPI Associates’ contribution to the programme was to:

Work from the initial ideas for the conferences, develop a robust methodology that would work well for the wide range of participants invited (policy makers, politicians, service providers and commissioners, service users and carers, members of the public)

Create a participative and engaging series of conferences that would also generate a consistent and usable set of data and evidence to test out and inform complex policy proposals

Design conference materials to brief participants

Brief, equip and de-brief a set of facilitators for each conference

EPI Associates was commissioned by an SHA in the north of England to design and direct a participative conference to bring about improvements to the planning and delivery of diabetes services. A large steering group was already in place with high expectations to make a wide range of rapid and practical improvement to services.

They had already decided to hold a conference when EPI Associates was approached.

EPI Associates’ contribution to the programme was to:

Clarify the context and aspirations for the conference with the steering group

Explore possible design options for the day

Refine the design and develop an extended invitation list with the client

Co-design invitation and briefing materials

Prepare conference materials in conjunction with the client

Brief and prepare the conference venue and support team

Facilitate the event

Support client with follow up and action planning

EPI Associates was commissioned by the nursing directorate of a multi-site acute trust faced with a poorly criticised service. There was a commitment from the hospital board to significantly improve users’ experience and the quality of care received.

We successfully involved over 100 service users, carers and relatives, service providers, planners and commissioners in a very productive day. A range of practical plans was generated, with a clear mandate and encouragement to persevere, changed attitudes were reported and an atmosphere created that promoted dialogue across the system and further service improvement.

We achieved this by:

Close partnership working with the steering group to refine the purpose of the conference in the wider service and organisational context

Making the client aware of the opportunities and requirements of a whole systems approach

EPI Associates was commissioned to prepare, design and facilitate a workshop to tackle conflict over the location and future configuration of midwifery services serving a population of 750,000 residents. The workshop involved multiple stakeholders: users, practitioners, local councillors and Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) representatives. Feelings were running high, positions were entrenched and the debate was politically sensitive.

We were able to:

Get participants to step back, look at the wider picture and appreciate alternative positions to their own

Gain agreement to a set of criteria on which to judge emerging proposals

Generate two credible new options for future services

Create an atmosphere of greater respect for other’s motives and reasoning

Help individuals out from positions where they were unable to make a useful contribution

Peter Mumford and colleague, Breda Flaherty, designed an innovative stakeholder involvement programme following a highly critical HCC report on Sutton and Merton PCT’s service for people with a learning disability to create a shared action plan across staff, services users and carers to improve services following an HCC enquiry. We designed a series of linked meetings and workshops to gather contributions on what to change and how to do it. We successfully involved:

People who used the service and their advocates

A newly appointed medical director of a district general hospital was looking for support to make the transition to the new role. A coach from EPI Associates worked with him over 18 months on: how he could best adapt his skills and experience to work effectively in a very demanding role, make the necessary personal and professional transitions, how to approach resolving problems in new ways, and providing him with support to resolve complex and longstanding clinical problems.

The frustration with pressure and demands on busy clinical and research workload were making life difficult for a newly appointed clinical director.

EPI Associates gave him assistance in handling reputation and well established patterns of behaviour and supported him with a range of approaches to resolving conflict and influencing colleagues.

Having completed a senior manager leadership programme this operations director wanted to move to a more challenging role.

We helped him apply what he had been learning on the leadership programme in his current role and coached him through the transition to a new post.

A group of busy, pressured communications directors were looking for an opportunity to network and gain access to professional development. The set met four times per year and worked on live issues, common challenges and had access to relevant professional development materials.

EPI Associates was commissioned by the chairman of a large acute trust to prepare, design and facilitate a ‘Board to Board’ workshop with their PCT on a series of contentious issues.

Preparatory meetings were held with the Chair and Chief Executive of each board to clarify context, level of interest and potential aspirations. From this an agenda and design for the day was agreed.

A newly formed PCT commissioning team needed to develop a strategy and establish how to work constructively with each other. EPI Associates was approached by the commissioning director and once the initial brief was clear we suggested semi structured interviews with a cross section of the new team to get their perspective and help shape the opening workshop.

The interviews helped individuals work out what issues they faced, what they needed to work on as a team and what could most usefully be addressed with the benefit of a facilitator. The day addressed the big strategic issues facing the team and looked at the personal styles and preferences of team members through the use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

EPI Associates was approached by the senior partner of a 6 partner practice. The partnership was under pressure:

Two partners were due to retire

Two other partners were in serious conflict with each other

Clinical service quality was generally very good

The practice had a good reputation

Staff morale was deteriorating

Senior partner and others concerned what the future held for the practice

A week end away for the partners had been booked

Following an opening discussion with the senior partner, we agreed we would interview each partner, to get to know them and they us, and then feed back to the partners our initial observations and suggestions. From this we would agree the content and agenda for the week end away.

Peter Mumford and colleague, Breda Flaherty, developed this popular and successful 3 day modular programme which runs twice a year to provide leadership development to more recently appointed senior clinicians. It complements and builds on a 3 day in-house Trust induction programme.

For many it is their first exposure to a leadership development programme. It has proved to be very successful for individuals who are trying to get established in their department and develop aspects of their service.

Peter Mumford and his colleague, Breda Flaherty were approached by a PCT wanting to develop a leadership programme accessible and relevant to General Practitioners becoming involved with commissioning and service leadership.

The programme ran over a 3 month period, with one day modules. It focused on understand the evolving context of General Practice, their own preferences and strengths in relation to leadership and influence, where best to put their effort given PCT needs and their interests and capabilities. The programme was specifically designed to develop leadership skills that would also be of value to participants and their partners in their General Practice.

We were approached by a Chief Executive faced with a poorly performing and demoralised A&E department. The department was under pressure from other clinical departments and from the Hospital Board.

We agreed to interview the main parties involved and then agree jointly a course of action with the department leads, Medical Director and Chief Executive.

At the core of the work was the need to re-establish relationships between the consultants and from this help them re-establish departmental leadership and coherent clinical teams in the context of a long term and official grievance between two medical colleagues.

A PCT Board had decided on the basis of population, need and experience to place a GP-led ‘Darzi’ primary care centre in a particular market town. Met with strong resistance from existing practices the Board agree to undertake an impact assessment on existing services. We were approached to undertake this assessment.

The Strategic Board of a London–wide multi agency body commissioned Peter Mumford and colleague, Breda Flaherty, to develop a 5 year strategy for service development, and recommend priorities. We interviewed key service providers and managers from the agencies involved, reviewed statistics, synthesised relevant policies and in collaboration with the Board produced the report.