31/03/2009 by Patrick Keady.

The NHS Institute has been an exciting place to work. During my 18 months with them, I led the development of their intranet-based risk register and board assurance framework, standing orders, standing financial instructions and scheme of delegation.

As well as being a key link between the Institute and the Department of Health, I was actively involved in developing their balanced scorecard; sustainable development; reviewing the security of their people, buildings and information; the procurement of health and safety training and risk assessment services and lots more besides.

Working with the NHS Institute meant a lot me. Over the 18 months, it has transformed into an outward looking, customer-focussed organisation. Whenever I hear about NHS Live, Knowledge Management, World Class Commissioning, the Management Training Schemes, the Productives, Safer Care series … I’ll think of them.

And I’m looking forward to my next assignment at NHS Stoke on Trent.

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05/03/2009 by Patrick Keady.

A colleague mentioned this morning that today is World Book Day. And she asked me if I have a favourite book.  I mentioned the one that I like a lot.

Five Minds for the Future sets out to help us survive and prosper with increasing technology, globalisation and diversity. And unsurprisingly, it is how we think that will be the key to our success. There are five mind-types that will maximise our success.

Knowing something really well, being an expert in surgery, or management, or safer care and keeping it up, are examples of the disciplined mind.

And the synthesising mind is about the information that we receive. What do we pay attention to and what de we ignore, how do we put it together in a way that makes sense to us?

The creating mind is about coming up with something new that eventually affects how other people are and how they think.

When it comes to thinking out of the box, the disciplined and synthesising minds provide the box and for many of us, that’s enough. But for the cutting-edge few, it’s the thinking and doing stuff that really ends up benefiting lots of people.

Our respectful mind enables us to give others the benefit of the doubt, getting to know them, understanding them, suspending judgement and being capable of forgiveness. And the respectful mind is acutely important because of the diverse society we live in.

And the ethical mind is capable of abstraction. This is where we can think about ourselves abstracting. The ethical mind asks what our responsibilities are, what our responsibilities are as residents of where we live, the UK, of the planet?

So much for the theory. And what about this in practice. We can reflect on the extent to which our minds embody discipline, synthesising, creativity, respect and ethics.

And within independent consultancy, respect and ethics are vital. Unless we retain our atmosphere of respect, colleagues and customers will probably not trust us and relations are likely to deteriorate.

Of course we cannot guarantee that our customers will be respectful and ethical. And as we embody these virtues in our interactions, the chances are enhanced that they will reciprocate.

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01/03/2009 by Patrick Keady.

Joined twitter today and I’m delighted with the amount of information on there. About celebrities, the M5, Universities, BMJ, newspapers and three NHS Trusts - buckinghamshire hospitals, oxford radcliffe, and southampton university hospitals.

With twitter, I can follow other twitter’ers and be followed. Already being followed by two sites and I’m following 42 twitter sites.

And best of all, I can see all of their tweets chronogically. My profile is http://twitter.com/patrickkeady

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