Rahima Bhatti

NEWS – Innovative GP Cloud Platform Takes Home Prestigious Virtual Care Award at 2024 HSJ Awards

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Innovative GP Cloud Platform Takes Home Prestigious Virtual Care Award at 2024 HSJ Awards

26th March 2024, Plymouth, Devon

Devon-based shared services provider, Delt, is excited to announce that its GP in the Cloud (GPitC) platform, developed with partners NHS Devon, Integy, and NASGP (National Association of Sessional GPs), has been officially named as the “Gold” winner in the ‘Virtual Care Project of the Year’ category at the HSJ Partnership Awards 2024, in recognition of an outstanding dedication to improving healthcare and effective collaboration with the NHS.

The same team also won a Silver Award in the very competitive ‘Best Healthcare Provider Partnership with the NHS’ award. The gala ceremony, held at Evolution London in Battersea Park on Thursday 21st March 2024, saw the project team praised for their innovative approach to revolutionising virtual care services.

In presenting GP in the Cloud the Virtual Care Award, judges praised the project team for “working together to set up and deliver a service that enables safe, effective virtual care.”

“It (GP in the Cloud) involved patients in the care plan, equipping them to contribute to their own recovery, and has potential to scale up to meet future care demands.”

The GPitC platform emerged as a response to the GP shortage in Devon, addressing a pivotal challenge in digital primary care innovation. During the Covid-19 pandemic, online consultations transformed GP services, but limitations persisted due to system constraints. To overcome this, Delt collaborated with NHS Devon, cloud computing experts Integy, and the National Association of Sessional GPs (NASGP) to create ‘GP in the Cloud’. This technology enables GPs from anywhere in the UK to conduct consultations remotely, enhancing patient access and practice flexibility.

Thirty-four Devon practices participated in the pilot project, successfully embedding GP in the Cloud. By the end of 2022, it became the standard model across the Devon ICB footprint, delivering thousands of additional clinical hours and cost savings.

Recognising its success, NHS England sought Devon ICB’s blueprint for regional and national rollout, positioning GP in the Cloud for future nationwide availability.

Commenting on the recent win, Dr John McCormick, Chief Clinical Information Officer for Devon ICB, said: “This award is wonderful recognition for a project that brings tangible benefits to GP practices and patients, and a tribute to the organisations that delivered it. Each of the partners involved in GP in the Cloud brings a specialism. It is the combination of these specialisms that resulted in the success of this project. It is an outstanding example of true partnership working and what can be achieved.”

Delt CEO, Giles Letheren, added: “We are incredibly proud of our team and partners for delivering a groundbreaking solution that directly benefits NHS Devon and patients alike. Our joint win highlights the transformative impact of collaboration and technology in driving efficiency and accessibility within primary care settings. To have co-designed and implemented GP in the Cloud, a remote access platform that enables locum GPs to access a patient’s full medical record safely, securely and from any location, without the need to be issued a dedicated laptop, is good, but the bigger victory is in working together. The project itself was made feasible solely due to the willingness of NHS Devon to collaborate effectively with multiple partners. While the win for Virtual Care Project of the year reflects the utility and impact of our platform, we are perhaps even prouder of our silver award for Best Partnership.”

As Delt and their partners celebrate this achievement, they remain dedicated to advancing healthcare service excellence and look forward to continuing their journey of innovation in partnership with the NHS and healthcare providers across the UK.

The winners were selected following a rigorous two-stage judging process ahead of the HSJ Partnership Awards 2024 awards ceremony. The full list of Winners and those Highly Commended for the 2024 HSJ Partnership Awards can be found at https://partnership.hsj.co.uk/winners-2024

Blog – Balancing Act: The Vital Blend of Experience and Subject Matter Knowledge in Project Management

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Balancing Act: The Vital Blend of Experience and Subject Matter Knowledge in Project Management 

Watching ‘The Apprentice,’ you might think you need to be a subject matter expert (SME) in everything from bao buns to app development to manage a project. In the real world, is it a help or a hindrance, and how much does a Project Manager (PM) really need to know to successfully manage a project?

 

So, what are the advantages of being a PM and SME? 

The most significant and obvious advantage is understanding what is needed to deliver the work and ensuring efficient communication with the involved teams, and potentially stakeholders too.  

  • Understanding industry specific terminology can help build trust and respect, particularly with specialist roles. For example, knowing that you want to change lamps not bulbs in your light fixtures will certainly earn a few brownie points with your electrical contractor, and setting out clear agreements and clarification on terminology and acronyms helps to avoid many potential issues.
     
  • More than just understanding the conversation, you may also be able to estimate scope and timelines, contribute to solution design discussions, and potentially even take part in the delivery process.
     
  • By asking the right questions, you can provide a level of oversight without the need to defer back to expert resources. This can reduce meeting sizes and, ultimately, costs as resources are deployed more directly in delivery. 

All sounds very positive? 

While there are certainly pros, there are also cons.  

  • The most obvious drawback is the risk of becoming too involved in detailed solutions and delivery, avoiding the urge to Just do it yourself and neglecting other responsibilities as a result.
     
  • This may include overlooking aspects like progress and schedule management, stakeholder engagement, and ultimately, losing sight of developing risks and engaging all parties in your project.
     
  • There is also a risk that in becoming too involved, you may knowingly or otherwise, exert a level of influence over the direction and approach, bypassing potentially better ideas. This becomes even more of a risk if your knowledge of current trends or solutions has lapsed. 

An effective project manager will encourage all team members to contribute to the discussion.  

A lack of subject knowledge can stimulate thought and discussion, enabling the asking of questions and avoiding an unspoken consensus. This challenges the we’ve always done it this way approach, ensuring that the pros and cons are discussed with a risk-benefit analysis of other options duly considered.  

Ultimately, a level of subject knowledge will always be beneficial for a project manager. The optimal amount is best determined by a combination of the specific project requirements and the project manager’s experience. As a project manager gains more experience, the need for initial subject matter knowledge diminishes. They can learn what they need as the project progresses, especially in the early stages. The knowledge acquired can then be applied to create a set of deliverables and success criteria, serving as a guide for reviewing progress on tasks and ensuring successful project delivery.  

For an SME turned PM, remembering to take that step back requires a degree of self-awareness and the use of experience to question and challenge ideas rather than provide the solution directly.  

Releasing control and delegating ownership builds trust and confidence in the team to deliver and is vital to successfully delivering a rounded project and not just a targeted solution. 

 

Alan Greep, Project Manager

Karen Morris – Chief Financial Officer/Executive Director

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Karen Morris – Non-Executive Director

Originally from Northamptonshire, Karen moved to Devon in 2003 to be closer to friends and to live near the sea.

Karen joined Delt in 2018. A finance professional with 30 years’ experience in multiple sectors including Formula 1, manufacturing, and retail. She enjoys the challenge of the fast pace of change at Delt and gets a lot of satisfaction from helping people to do amazing things.

When not working she is a fair-weather sailor and loves sailing around the South Coast with her husband.  She also enjoys flower arranging and kick boxing at an amateur level.

NEWS – Delt Shared Services Earns Place on Newsweek’s list of the Top 100 Most Loved Workplaces for 2023

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Delt Shared Services earns place on Newsweek’s list of the Top 100 Most Loved Workplaces for 2023 

5th October 2023, Plymouth, Devon

Delt Shared Services today announced that they have been ranked as #9 among 100 UK companies recognised for outstanding employee sentiment and satisfaction.  

Newsweek recently published their annual rankings for the Top 100 Most Loved Workplaces® list, the result of a collaboration with the Best Practice Institute (BPI), a leadership development and benchmark research company.    

The results were determined after surveying more than two million employees from businesses with workforces varying in size from 50 to more than 100,000. The list recognises companies that have created a workplace where employees feel respected, inspired, and appreciated and are at the centre of the business model.   

Giles Letheren, CEO at Delt said: “I’m absolutely delighted that we have been accredited as a Most Loved Workplace, a certification that recognises companies for creating emotionally connected workplaces. I firmly believe that our team is truly exceptional, and our people are our most valuable assets. Our commitment to collaboration, teamwork, opportunities for advancement, and a culture of understanding and respect are some of the reasons why we have earned this recognition. We believe that creating a workplace where everyone can thrive empowers us to collaborate effectively and deliver exceptional results for our customers. This is essential to fulfilling our aim of helping people do amazing things.”  

Jane White, Chief People and Culture Officer added: “We are extremely pleased to be recognised by the prestigious Newsweek as #9 on their list of Top 100 Most Loved Workplaces. Delt works hard to ensure that our culture is employee-centric, and this award is a recognition of the hard work we’ve put into gathering employee feedback and taking actionable steps that benefit our employees.”  

 The key areas included in the analysis are based on how well companies demonstrate the areas within the Spark Model as defined by BPI including Systemic Collaboration, Positive Vision of the Future, Alignment of values, Respect, and Killer Achievement. Employee sentiments and emotions indicating how engaged employees are, how positive they feel about their workplace, and how committed they are to the organization’s success were analysed to identify the Top 100 Most Loved Workplaces.   

 “With the rapidly changing workplace and competition for top talent, more companies are recognising the importance of employee engagement and commitment”, said Nancy Cooper, Global Editor in Chief, Newsweek. “The workplaces that have demonstrated a commitment to their employees in 2023 are more likely to attract the best talent and deliver strong business outcomes.”  

 “Fully understanding and acting upon employee sentiment, emotion, and recommendations continues to be a challenge and top priority of executive leadership,” said Louis Carter, CEO of Best Practice Institute. “The companies on this list have committed to listening carefully to their employees to create a workplace employees love.”  

As a publicly owned but privately operated company founded in 2014 by shareholders, Plymouth City Council, and the NHS Devon, Delt is a shared services provider dedicated to providing comprehensive and complex back-office services including Payroll, Finance, IT, Cyber Security, Print and Mail, HR, Estates Management and Management Consulting to public sector organisations in the South West of England.   

To date, the company’s efforts have made a significant impact creating an annual socio-economic gain of nearly £16M in the region. With a presence in over 250 service areas across 400 locations, Delt plays a crucial role in supporting many of the area’s critical services, including NHS trusts, local government, blue light services, and educational institutions.    

 

For the full Newsweek list of 2023’s Most Loved Workplaces, please visit: https://www.newsweek.com/rankings/uks-100-most-loved-workplaces-2023   

 

  To find out more about why Delt was recognised for outstanding employee sentiment and satisfaction, please visit: Delt Shared Services – Most Loved Workplace®  

NEWS – Delt Shared Services and Integy’s Revolutionary GP Cloud Platform is Shortlisted at the HSJ 2023 Awards

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Delt Shared Services and Integy’s Revolutionary GP Cloud Platform is Shortlisted at the HSJ 2023 Awards

Devon-based shared services provider, Delt, is delighted to announce that its GP in the Cloud (GPitC) platform, developed for NHS Devon, has been shortlisted in the ‘Digitising Patient Care’ award category at the prestigious Health Service Journal (HSJ) Awards 2023. 

The ‘Digitising Patient Care’ award category aims to acknowledge effective initiatives that have harnessed technology and digital systems to enhance patient access to care, enable staff to optimise capacity, and elevate the overall experience and quality of healthcare. 

The GPitC platform effectively addresses a pivotal challenge in the evolution of digital primary care innovations. Amid a GP shortage in Devon, innovative strategies were sought for efficient primary care. Online consultations reshaped GP services during Covid-19, but limits persisted, hindering remote locum use due to system constraints. To address this, Delt worked collaboratively with cloud computing experts, Integy, NHS Devon and the National Association of Sessional GPs (NASGP) to pioneer a groundbreaking technology solution called ‘GP in the Cloud’. 

GPitC enables locums located throughout the UK to conduct patient consultations seamlessly over the internet. This is achieved through a secure cloud-based virtual desktop, preserving a practice’s internal clinical system integrity while granting access to systems required for remote consultations. The outcomes have been noteworthy: substantial cost savings for primary care in Devon, heightened patient care standards, and an enhanced work-life balance for staff. 

Commenting on the recent shortlist, Dr John McCormick, GP and Chief Clinical Information Officer at NHS Devon, said: “We are very proud to be recognised this way. Being shortlisted for in the HSJ Awards 2023 will be a huge boost for our dedicated and hard-working team. 

“GP in the Cloud has been transformative for our local GP practices and made significant improvements to us being able to better meet the demands of our patients at a time that there were huge challenges in accessing local GP services. 

“Being shortlisted for these awards gives us the opportunity to share our success with colleagues from across the entire sector, as well as showcasing everything we’ve learnt through implementing our project.” 

Delt CEO, Giles Letheren, added: “We are thrilled to be involved, along with our partners, in implementing a pioneering solution for the NHS Devon that harnesses technology and digital systems to enhance patients access to care. GP in the Cloud was developed to enable GPs from anywhere in the UK to deliver support to primary care, across multiple clinical systems, without the need for dedicated NHS hardware – enabling staff to optimise capacity, improve experience and most of all the quality of care.” 

As it enters its 43rd year, the HSJ Awards maintain their position as the pinnacle of recognition for healthcare service excellence in the UK. Winners of the HSJ awards will be announced at the award ceremony on 16th November at Evolution London.  

Malcolm Senior – Non-Executive Director

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Malcolm Senior – Non-Executive Director

Malcolm joined the NHS in 1997 after a career in Coal Mining and working on the Channel Tunnel Project. His 26 year career in the NHS has mainly been spent as a Chief Information Officer in Acute Hospitals in Torbay and South Devon and Musgrove Park Hospital in Somerset. Between January 2017 and May 2021 Malcolm worked on national Digital Programmes for NHS Digital, based in Leeds and London before joining NHS Devon in June 2021.

Malcolm currently has responsibility for Digital Transformation across the Devon Integrated Care System, with a real focus on increasing the use of digital technology to enable new models of care and improve the experiences and outcomes of care.

Malcolm has three grown up Son’s and enjoys walking in the beautiful Devon countryside, all forms of theatre and travel. He is an avid sports fan, supporting Leeds United FC and Castleford RLFC.

Blog – Military Leadership

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Military Leadership

It is Armed Forces Day on the 24th June and many people’s thoughts turn to our military community. I don’t dwell on the past but at this time of the year I do think a little bit more about my own military service. I left the Royal Navy 4 years ago and since then have been lucky enough to be working for Delt Shared Services as their Chief Projects Officer. Delt’s staple diet is the provision of IT managed services to Plymouth City Council, Devon NHS Integrated Care Board, Devon NHS Partnership Trust, and Transforming Futures Multi Academy Trust. We also provide a range of other services such as soft and hard facilities management, print & mail, procurement, finance, payroll and pensions, and, of course, project management. To deliver this wide range of shared services we need staff with various skills, including leadership.

A key skill of being a successful military operator is leadership. In my head, leadership is not a title or a job description it is a state of mind. The young sailor planning their part of ship maintenance, the chef conjuring up another amazing meal for 200 (and there are many other examples) and then working with their team to deliver are just as important leadership roles as the Commanding Officer of a ship, a squadron or a regiment. Young people serving in our military are exposed to leadership and leading from day 1 of their time in uniform.

As an Armed Forces Covenant signatory Delt is proud to support our military community. We hire veterans and use their leadership skills in our business. As we go through our annual performance management reviews, we select staff to attend one of our leadership training courses. In April this year our leadership training culminated with a graduation ceremony at Devonport Hall. Nine staff members completed the course, 4 of them were ex-military and covered all 3 Services. On that day I was immensely proud of all our brilliant Delt staff. Everyone delivered excellent presentations summing up their own personal leadership journey. There were some amazing leadership lessons, a great deal of emotional intelligence displayed and a few tears! It was especially rewarding to see 4 ex Royal Navy, Royal Airforce and Army men and women show how the experience they gained in the military and the lessons they learned during training and on operations allowed them to operate with confidence in a different environment.

Thank you from Delt to all our Armed Forces for your amazing work, and a special shout out to all the veterans working at Delt for your contribution to our success.

 

Gary Pettitt, Chief Projects Officer

Blog – Send Three and Four Pence…

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Send Three and Four Pence…

Proper and effective communications is often cited as fundamental to success. So how do we ensure we hit the target when it comes to efficient project communications? How can we avoid the message, send reinforcements we are going to advance, being received as, send three and four pence we are going to a dance!?

An effective project leader needs to be a good communicator and like leadership the way we deliver our message needs to work for the situation we find ourselves in. We also need to think carefully about our desired outcome, our audience, the methods of communication that are available to us and the timing of our messaging. I once found myself being asked to send a letter rather than an email!! My instinct was to push back, but that was a battle I couldn’t win. Best to accept that this person required information to be communicated in a particular way. I conformed and reaped the rewards with a relationship that delivered results. You need to adapt to your customers’ needs, a telephone call, an MS Teams / Zoom / Google Meet… call (camera off or on?) or do they prefer an email or a DM? They might even want you to come to their office and meet in person! Understanding the how of communications is an important step to effective dialogue.

What about the when? You are on the train merrily chugging down the track for your weekend away and the train slows to a halt unexpectedly. To start with you are fine, after all your risk analysis showed that only 89% of UK trains arrive on time (made up statistic!) so your mitigation measure is to arrive 30 mins before you really need to. All good. Naturally you want to know what has happened, something has changed so your plan needs updating. Five, 10, 15 minutes pass and no announcement, you start getting agitated. You need input, your plan needs updating. An early acknowledgement of the delay and commitment to update soon would have sufficed. The timing of customer communications needs careful consideration and experience can be a factor. It is, however, just as simple as asking. Talk to your customer, what do they need / want to know and when. What events need an immediate call? Most importantly don’t leave anyone you work with in the dark, if you haven’t been in contact with your customer for a couple of weeks then you ought to do that now.

I wouldn’t advocate style over substance but the way you package your customer communications will serve as an important indicator to your professional persona. The situation will largely dictate your style, a dynamic young AI start-up will arguably need a different style from a global ‘blue chip’ behemoth. Judge the situation, your audience, the output you desire and craft your message carefully using an appropriate style. And at the risk of being branded a pedant, or even worse having this blog returned to me with all the spelling and grammar errors highlighted, getting spelling and grammar correct and eradicating typing errors is important. The Amstrad PCW 9512 that I had in the late 80’s had a fabulous spelling and grammar checker, so there are no excuses!

Given the considerable reduction in face-to-face meetings there is one aspect of communication style that is now increasingly important and that is how we say things. Google tells me that 10% of conflict is due to a difference of opinion and 90% is due to delivery and tone of voice. Example (stern voice), ‘I need you to get the PID for the Network project sorted today, no excuses just get it done!’ or (calm soothing voice), ‘we need to have a chat about the Network project PID, it needs to be done today. I know you are busy so let’s talk about how we can prioritise your work to give you the best chance of finishing today.’

In summary, communicate with your customers never leave them in the dark, even saying that nothing has changed is valuable. In doing so you need to consider the situation you are in, the desired output, what you need to say, when to say it and how you will deliver the message. Remember the well-worn, but still relevant, George Bernard Shaw quote, ‘the single biggest issue with communications is the illusion that it has taken place’ So always check understanding, you need reinforcements not 3 and 4 pence!

 

Gary Pettitt, Chief Projects Officer

Blog – Questions vs Answers

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Questions vs Answers

In case you don’t know about Alex the parrot, let me introduce you to him.  Alex is/was (unfortunately he is no longer with us) considered one of the most articulate animals to interact with humans.  Alex developed a considerable vocabulary and was, amongst other things, able to answer questions about the name and colour of objects.  This is pretty impressive, but perhaps not out of the ordinary given there are monkeys, dogs, seals and other mammals that have similarly mastered language skills.  What makes Alex more interesting is that he was the first known animal that formed his own question.

Once he had mastered the primary colours, he was shown his reflection in a mirror and asked what colour he was.  That’s quite a breakthrough, no longer is he showing willingness to “talk” for a food reward, this was a parrot wanting to use language to enquire and learn more.

The point is that one of the key attributes of the best staff is their interest in development and learning.  In other words they are ceaselessly asking questions.  Alex stands out amongst all the other talking animals in that he wanted to use his language skills to understand what the name of his colour was.   (Makes you wonder if he wasn’t a bit disappointed to be grey given the wide pallet of colours that other parrots enjoy?).

Since the arrival of AI chat bots – with Chat GPT that wrote a previous blog for us – the end game appears in sight for those of us who thought that we were employed on the basis of being able to answer questions.  Whilst at times we are expected to know the answers to do our jobs, the arrival of software with the power to understand natural language questions and provide uniquely crafted and increasingly better responses is going to reduce the premium given to roles requiring expertise or analysis.  One of the vital skills in a post AI chat bot world has to be knowing what the right questions to ask are.  This like any other skill, is one that requires practise.  Making time to consciously reflect on the situation we find ourselves in and find the right questions to ask in order to resolve problems or exploit opportunities will be what we need in a modern workforce.   Anyone with these skills might also be the more interesting people to share time with too!  So, returning to the issue posed by the headline on this article and asking whether which is better: questions or answers, I would contend that whilst we can’t ignore the power of knowing the answer, in the long term those who understand the power of asking a question will be more successful.

If you don’t believe me about Alex you can find out more about him here: https://www.bl.uk/the-language-of-birds/articles/alex-the-african-grey-parrot

 

Peter Honeywell, Non-Executive Director

NEWS – Delt Partners with Reliance Cyber to Offer Industry-leading Cybersecurity Services to the Public Sector

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Delt Partners with Reliance Cyber to Offer Industry-leading Cybersecurity Services to the Public Sector

Delt Shared Services and Reliance Cyber have partnered to provide industry-leading managed security services to public sector organisations.

The partnership with Reliance Cyber aims to provide an ‘always on’ security approach that will strengthen the defences of public sector organisations and safeguard them against the increasing number and complexity of cyber-attacks.

With the increasing number of attacks on the public sector, comprehensive cyber security is vitally important. In August 2022, 36 NHS organisations were impacted by a severe cyber-attack that had significant and long-lasting effects. Incidents like the attack on the NHS are costly, time-consuming, and disruptive. Such attacks, highlight the need for public sector organisations to have comprehensive cybersecurity defences in place.

Delt’s partnership with Reliance Cyber will provide public sector customers with a fully managed security service which includes 24/7, 365-day-a-year monitoring, detection, and response, mitigating their risk of cyberattacks. This partnership is a significant milestone in the expansion of Delt’s capabilities and is a direct response to the market’s need for increased resilience against cyber threats.

Giles Letheren CEO of Delt, expressed his delight at the collaboration, saying, ” We are committed to always providing our customers with the highest level of service, working with Reliance Cyber enables us to further meet this objective. Letheren went on to say, “The partnership provides a top-level security service that supports and responds to the real threats facing public sector organisations. ”

Rob Walton, Chief Revenue Officer at Reliance Cyber, added, “We are proud to work with Delt in protecting public sector organisations from the mounting threat of cyberattacks. Our team of experts is dedicated to providing best-in-class security, and we look forward to collaborating with Delt to further secure their customers.”

The Delt and Reliance Cyber partnership is set to enhance the cybersecurity of public sector organisations and provide Delt’s customers with peace of mind. Delt believes that its clients should feel confident that they are protected by the best possible security service in the market. With Reliance Cyber’s expertise and experience in advanced cyber threats, there is confidence that this partnership will provide customers with the highest level of protection. By working together, this partnership will help clients mitigate their risks, stay ahead of emerging threats, and focus on their core operations with the knowledge that their critical assets and data are secure.