22 October - non-executive directors webinar

This week’s session began in conversation with Beatrice Fraenkel, Chair at Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust and Sue Musson, Chair at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Overheard during the discussion:

“One of the key things in establishing and keeping a partnership together is understanding whether you actually have shared values, a shared understanding of what it is you would like to achieve and understanding whether you are committed and willing to put in the time and effort to put that into fruition.”

“We have a personal relationship which does help but also a wealth of respect for each other in what we do for our organisations, so the partnership really works.”

“Partnering only works if it’s fundamentally rooted in understanding the organisations you are working with and never making assumptions, as what you see on the surface is never what you have underneath.”

“We have regular fortnightly meetings online to discuss the shaping of the environment and how we can shape and influence it in a way that we understand between us now. As our relationship has grown, we can also help our chief executives and leadership in various ways as it helps pass information up. I know that they really value the fact that we can sound things out with each other and see how things would land.”

“During our winter plan, we made some crucial joint appointments and this really cemented our work with local authorities. We then decided to keep these joint appointments outside of our winter plan as they worked well in making sure we were operating together as organisations.”

“With the ICS, you just get on with it and do what the right thing is. Between us we make up the majority of providing care in the ICS, this does give us quite a loud voice in the ICS, which is sometimes uncomfortable but it does allow us to get on and do the right things.”

“Meetings between some of our two organisations' NEDs have highlighted common areas of interest and ambition. There is lots to build on, especially as we move into ICS arrangements.”

“We have eye-watering levels of deprivation and there are opportunities for both trusts to collaborate and work together to tackle this. The commitment from both organisations to work with our partners in the region shouldn’t be underestimated.”

“What we need to stop doing is being competitive in our organisations. Collaborate, not compete. I do think that women by nature are more collaborative than competitive, which is a sweeping generalisation but it is something I see.”

“A good collaboration is more about having the willingness to gather information and the intellectual rigour to question whether things are right, whether things could happen differently and whether collaboration can help and how.”

These meetings are by invitation and are open to all NHS non-executives directors, chairs and associate non-executive directors of NHS providers. Others may attend by special invitation. For further details, visit our events page.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions about these webinars, please contact: events@good-governance.org.uk