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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28/02/2009 by Patrick Keady.

This morning I received an INLPTA Certificate from David Smallwood, for completing the NLP Master Practitioner course.

David is a certified trainer of business-focused NLP, a certified NLP health practitioner and a certified INLPTA trainer. And he was my principal trainer throughout all of my NLP training at diploma, practitioner and master practitioner levels. David is a wonderful inspiration, an excellent trainer and unbeatable value for money too.

Having completed the NLP practitioner course last year, David commented that it was during the master practitioner training that I really demonstrated the integration of my Practitioner training.

A number of people have asked what the NLP master practitioner training is all about and how it differs from NLP practitioner training.

While I had the skills and understanding of an NLP practitioner, the master practitioner training leveraged my learning from there to go to levels of competency that to an untrained observer might appear amazing. See what Richard Bandler has to say about master practitioner training.

While the focus in practitioner training was on learning the fundamentals, the master practitioner training was about Mastery. This brought with it new levels of understanding and skills development so that I am now able to run the NLP patterns as well as able to tailor, re-organise, and even make new patterns on my own that are appropriate to the situation in hand.

I learned new distinctions and developed new skills and David trained us with his eye on precision and elegance. The epistemology of the master practitioner training was very different too from that of the practitioner - in terms of outcomes, behaviours, ways of being, and ways of relating to the world.

The master practitioner training was about me and the many routes open to me to achieve my outcomes, my better outcomes. It was about my ability to facilitate behavioural change and to do so elegantly, generatively, and with precision.

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12/02/2009 by Patrick Keady.

‘Without a national study, politicians and health professionals go into denial ….. we don’t have a problem’. This was one of the comments for Sir Liam Donaldson when he opened the Patient Safety Research Portfolio Conference this morning at the Royal College of Physicians

Speaking to a selection of the researchers that participated in the 36 patient safety research projects undertaken over seven years, at a cost of about 70p per NHS England employee per annum. He outlined his vision of the ten contributions that patient safety research offers to improving healthcare, as follows:

•    increasing awareness of patient safety - with clinicians, provider organisations and commissioners
•    understanding the causes of patient (un)safe-ty – and in relation to sleep deprivation, Sir Liam reminded us of the importance of the 48 hour week - clinicians are more likely to kill patients when they are tired.
•    more research in the young discipline of patient safety will enhance safety and improve productivity
•    establishing conceptual concepts - to enhance the ‘poverty of concepts in patient safety’
•    developing solutions – including improved design in healthcare, a recurring theme throughout the day
•    setting standards for information – before and after studies, randomised control trials etc
•    informing evidence based care
•    evaluating progress including checklists - twice as effective as education
•    nurturing researchers
•    and promoting leaders in patient safety

Professor Richard Lilford oversaw the Patient Safety Research Portfolio from its inception and this morning, he highlighted some of the successes of the programme. These included Professor Nick Barber’s discovery that nursing homes openly welcomed the prospect of his team observing medication errors and recommending improvements – their willingness could be related to the significant amount of time that care home staff spend in medication-related activities.

The day was chaired by Professor Paul Barach, one of the best Chairs that I’ve seen at a healthcare seminar/conference. He has has a very rare ability. He keeps the audience interested, even during the ‘graveyard shift’.  And he ensured that all 17 leaders in patient safety research, delivered their presentations in less than 4 hours. Now that is a rare achievement.

Citing an (unnamed) study elsewhere in the world, we heard that 9% of clinicians wash their hands before they touch a patient in the operating room and 17% do so after they touch the patient. Enter Professor Sheldon Stone summarising the successes of the Clean Your Hands campaign – and reminding us of the rationale for the campaign - 8% of patients acquire healthcare associated infections and their mortality is six times higher. Direct contact by hand is the main route of infection and Sheldon delivered this very serious message, in an entertaining way.

Chris Fuller described HHOT – the hand hygiene observation tool and Professor George Hanna told us about the checking procedures developed by his team for naso-gastric tubes. Dr Rebecca Lawton highlighted the success and lessons learned in evaluating non-luer spinal connectors.

While risk metrices represent risk and are almost universal in healthcare, Professor John Clarkson highlighted their limitations - they lack a systematic approach. And this is why he and his team are developing a toolbox for healthcare, that will include risk assessment models and tools and a process for escalating the higher risks.

Dr Karin Lowson’s insight into single hospital rooms, was topical and revealing. Patients in single rooms are more satisfied. They are less likely to acquire infection experience medication errors during their hospital stay. That said, some patient in single rooms are more likely to die and experience depression. And the risk of an adverse event and length of stay are about the same for patients in wards and in single rooms.

Much has been said about enhancing the patient safety agenda on the curricula of healthcare professionals. And recommendations as to this an be achieved, were provided by Dr Pauline Pearson and Professor Amanda Howe.

Professor Ian Watt gave an overview of how patients can ensire that clinicians deliver safe patient care – by making sure that the treatment is appropriate for them, that the treatment is as planned and in accordance with the appropriate protocol, and identifying how the health system can be made safer.

Dr Ken Catchpole shared his line of enquiry in operating theatres and elsewhere in healthcare. And he has four key questions. Is the healthcare team’s approach consistent with achieving high standards of care. Is what they are doing acceptable for Ken and his family. Does what the team are doing have to be like this. Is this the best it can be? Simple questions, revealing answers.

And Professor Mary Dixon-Woods outlined six rules for governance in operating theatres. The organisation is geared to promote patient safety. Protocols are deployed appropriately and everyone serves their spirit. Optimum communication. Minimal distraction and interruption. Effective authority and accountability. Reporting patient safety incidents.

Professor Justin Waring is in the process of summarising the outputs from the PSRP under the broad headings of the nature of patient safety, sources of risk and safety, and identifying the future direction for research.

And Martin Fletcher was the final speaker, talking about the science of safety. The NPSA Chief Executive sees the patient safety research agenda developing by networking the researchers, funding more PhD students and running another UK patient safety research conference.
Some of the many highlights for me were hearing about the science of safety, Ken Catchpole’s approach to enquiry in patient safety, how patients can be more assertive, updating the curricula, design of hospitals and non-luer spinal connectors, prospective analysis, competency based training in naso-gastric tubes and handwashing, observing hand hygiene, the benefits and weaknesses of focusing on improving culture and CHUMS.

With many thanks to Sir Liam Donaldson, Professor Lilford, the PSRP team and all of the researchers for making this fantastic conference a reality.

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25/01/2009 by Patrick Keady.

You like where you live. You love your job. Maybe you don’t. Want to move? And not sure where to? Maybe you’d like to move to four different places all at once. Or you want to remind yourself just why you love where you live. Then, Who’s Your City? place finder is for you.

Just list where you live now and up to four other places where you’d like to live. Answer 10 questions and place finder will reflect back to you the place that’s best  suited to you. And those that don’t too.

If you like the website, then you’ll love Richard Florida’s book. Who’s Your City? How the Creative Economy Is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life.

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12/11/2008 by Patrick Keady.

NHS Live has done it again! They promised lots. And then they’ve delivered so much more. Their latest outing, NHS Innovation Live, took place today at the Queen Elizabeth II Center, London.

Designed as a platform for sharing and celebrating some of the many achievements in today’s NHS, the event was hosted by Kathy Sykes, Professor of Sciences and Society at Bristol University and a Trustee of NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts). Kathy has a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Not a stranger to the media, I like her balanced approach. Kathy is open to the people that she meets, while not loosing sight of the scientific rigour that she has been immersed in throughout her career.

Gill Hicks gave today’s keynote address. Gill lost both of her legs from below the knee on 7th July 2005. Gill told us about the hour or so that she was trapped in a London Underground carriage, her three cardiac arrests before she got to hospital, the make-shift stretcher used to get her there, the Paramedic who challenged discussions to pronounce Gill dead, the Consultant that told her ‘you will get better’, the nurse who got her to the hospital hairdresser just a week after the bombings, the cafeteria staff that chatted with her every morning, the physio who coached her back to her independence and the many other NHS staff that helped her through her recovery.

Interlaced with lots of humour about being Australian and some of the funnier experiences during her recovery, Gill held the mirror up to the 600 delegates at NHS Innovation Live. And what the delegates saw in the mirror, was a former NHS patient that was truly grateful for the services that the NHS provides. What they saw in the mirror was more than sufficient for many of the delegates that had travelled from near and far. And there was so much more to come.

They had many choices. Which two of the twelve breakout sessions would they attend. Did they want to learn how to release the innovator In themselves, or how social innovation can create a new model of health for men. Or maybe they wanted to know more about how Royal Bolton Hospital adopted LEAN Thinking. For the geeks, they could hear about generating and using patient stories to improve the NHS via Web 2.0 technology. Performance people could hear how an SHA is intelligently using information to the manage performance of its PCTs and Trusts. Other choices included how social and cultural background contributes to health beliefs and attitudes to mental distress, the excitement of setting up a social enterprise organization, how to nurture an idea and transform it into something really tangible and effective, exploring the role of charities and other third sector organisations in health innovation, using observation to find out what people do and how they carry out their work, improving understanding and the experience of patient and staff, and understanding mental illness from the perspective of service user.

Yet another excellent NHS Live event – well done to the NHS Live team. Why not sign up for their next event. Its free and they’re at www.nhslive.nhs.uk

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01/07/2008 by Patrick Keady.

When I arrived at Paddington Station in London this afternoon, I was 50 minutes early for my next train. As I was hungry too, I decided to find a place nearby, serving tasty food. Less than a minute from Paddington, I noticed restaurant across the street painted in ‘NHS-blue’.

And as today was the NHS’s 60th birthday, I decided to see what was in store. Limon uses a wealth of aromatic herbs and spices to create a plasant range of Humus, Shish and Mezze. The Turkish dishes are traditional and contemporary, drawing upon diverse influences.

I opted for a cappucino and large humus served with a topping of chicken and mushroom. Delicious and at £8, this was excellent value for money too.

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