Shaping Moorfields’ New Horizon
Back in June, we wrote a blog to introduce our project with Moorfields Eye Hospital, all about imagining the future of eye care and setting a ‘future horizon’ for the trust. In particular, we wanted to learn from experiences of those delivering and receiving care during the pandemic. This period of course brought many challenges, but also created the space for new and innovative practice with many potential learnings for the future.
What we’ve learned so far
Staff shared enthusiasm for the culture of innovation and experimentation that emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic, outlining how this enabled greater autonomy and collaboration. Patients and carers emphasised the importance of the reassurance and confidence they were given when their care had to be delivered in different ways, and the importance of empathy and clarity to their experience of care. These conversations and stories provided an important starting point from which we could begin building a future horizon, but to truly imagine the future, we needed to bring people together into a shared space.
Bringing staff and patients together
Across three workshops in June and July (including a specific session for young people), 19 patients and carers from ages 5 to 80+ came together with 24 members of clinical and non-clinical staff to ask:
How might we, as the staff, patients and community of Moorfields Eye Hospital shape its future together?
This wasn’t a standard patient consultation or simply a chance to gather views. Instead we worked together to re-imagine the future of Moorfields — asking what we would like to bring into our future and what we might leave behind.
The sessions followed a three-part structure:
- What is? — Sharing stories of what Moorfields means to us.
- What if? — Imagining the future of Moorfields together.
- What now? — The first steps we might take to get there.
The power of co-creation
We aimed to create an environment where everyone could contribute equally, and where staff had the chance to listen and understand, not just to respond to patient experience feedback. Patients also had the chance to understand staff perspectives in a different way. A number of powerful conversations took place, deepening each others’ perspectives and enabling a future vision to be co-created.
After the workshop, we heard how much staff and patients valued the experience and opportunity to share and learn from one another. Most notably, patients and staff were able to see things from the others’ perspective, and many commented on how powerful it was to do this.
“These sessions are really useful and thought provoking and should be ongoing to inform the future of Moorfields” — Workshop participant (staff)
“This has been a wonderful space, I felt empowered to speak freely about my experiences and actually think back and realise how the care I have received from Moorfields has been incredible.” — Workshop participant (patient)
“It was so lovely to meet with other patients and staff who clearly work so hard in their roles” — Workshop participant (patient)
Compass Points
Combining all learnings together, New Citizenship Project developed four ‘compass points’ to guide Moorfields’ future strategy…
Cultivating Confidence — a central principle
For patients, confidence stemmed from a feeling of reassurance, both from clarity and thoroughness of care and from Moorfields’ reputation. For staff, it was knowing and trusting colleagues, and having the autonomy to suggest, try and develop new ideas that cultivated confidence.
“Being spoken to as an intelligent equal and individual.”
“I always felt that I was in the best place possible receiving the latest technology available from wonderful caring staff. They always explained what the current position was [and] what might happen in future.”
Questions that raises:
- How can we ensure that patients across the network are confident in the standards of care?
- How can we ensure that staff are given the confidence to develop skills, experiences and to suggest new ideas and act autonomously?
1. Partnering with Patients
This is about patients having a role, both in the management of their own care and in the design and delivery of services, pathways and research. For staff it is about seeing the value, benefit and possibilities of driving improvement and quality by involving patients — not just through consultation and feedback.
“I now feel empowered. I am a partner in the delivery of my treatment. Not just a receiver of it.”
Questions that raises:
- What if we could facilitate genuine connection between patients and staff to enable partnership working in research or service design?
- What if we went beyond staff and patient ‘voice’ and instead sought their ideas, suggestions and input?
2. Anchoring in Empathy
This is about the power of two-way understanding; staff & patients putting themselves in each other’s shoes, enabling people to feel seen, heard and appreciated. Crucially for patients, it is considering the whole person, not just the diagnosis.
“I really appreciated having a nurse take my hand and give me reassurance.”
Questions that raises:
- What if we more explicitly collaborated with both established and informal patient groups to provide peer support to our patients?
- How might we see empathy as a practice; something staff can continue to develop and share?
3. Building Genuine Teams
This is about staff being given autonomy and stability, the chance to draw motivation from teamwork and collaboration with others. Importantly in this future, staff mental health and wellbeing is at the top of the agenda.
“They have the autonomy to lead something, to be in charge of something and to show what they can do.”
“We are treated as a community - with trust and support across the whole network.”
Questions that raises:
- How might we foster a sense of community and belonging from staff who work across the whole network?
- How might a coaching approach to organisational development support the cohesion, effectiveness and fulfilment of teams?
4. Designing Seamless Experiences
This is about every Moorfields experience being calm, efficient and flowing for both patients and staff. In this future, it is about more than efficiency, it is about cohesion.
“Everything in its logical place. No second guessing where you are going.”
“I get to my consulting room and everything is in place to help me start my job.”
Questions that raises:
- How might seamless systems enable staff to have all the necessary information at their fingertips?
- How might we ensure that patients receive their communication in a format they prefer and that suits them?
What next?
This project was commissioned by the strategy team at Moorfields Eye Hospital to ensure that patients and staff are able to shape the direction of the future strategy; that is, the plan for the way Moorfields works. The learnings from the process are being integrated into specific objectives and work programmes in the strategy report which will be launched in due course.
Is there anything missing or that hasn’t been covered in the above? Do comment below to share any other thoughts and perspectives.
