Over 140 delegates attended the Social Partnership Forum's NHS Partnership Fund event at the Thistle Hotel, Marble Arch, London to share their experiences and learning gained from pulling together the successful projects.
The event brought together partners in the NHS leading on embedding partnership in their own organisations in order to deliver NHS priorities.
The agenda was designed to focus on:
- sharing learning and experiences from both the partnership fund projects and delegates own organisations
- hearing about partnership working in other sectors from recent research and from those delivering it
18 national partnership fund awards were awarded and the standard was extremely high. All of the award winners presented their projects at the event, along with two regionally funded award schemes.
"Very well done, excellent presentations and good group work", "Excellent event - let's do it!", "Very informative day, lots of enthusiasm to take forward'
Presenters/speakers
Nita Clarke, Director, IPA chaired the event on behalf of the Social Partnership Forum.
Nita is the Director of the Involvement and Participation Association (IPA). She was vice-chair of the Macleod Review on employee engagement and continues to work with David Macleod and the Department for Business on implementing the report’s recommendations.
She was formerly the adviser on trade unions to Prime Minister Tony Blair, working as assistant political secretary in the Political Office at 10 Downing Street from January 2001 to June 2007. Her role included liaison with individual unions and the TUC, developing national policy in areas such as the two-tier workforce and work-life balance, supporting ministers by trouble-shooting in industrial disputes. Nita was a senior official with public services union UNISON from 1992 -2001. She is the author of the report The way forward: trade unions and the third sector, commissioned by ACEVO.
Download a copy of Nita Clarke's presentation at the event here.
David Williams, Partnership Director and Gareth Hexter, Director of Financial and Corporate Services, United Welsh Housing Association
United Welsh is a not-for-profit organisation providing housing and related services to people in South Wales. David and Gareth will discuss their experiences of partnership working and their People Engagement Model.
Gareth Hexter is Director of Corporate Services at United Welsh with responsibility for finance and human resources. He chaired the Association’s Partnership at Work project, which established a Partnership Agreement with the recognised union, Unison.
This partnership was the foundation for a culture change programme that culminated in the organisation being recognised as the Top Not for Profit Workplace in the European Union 2005. Gareth is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s leaders network and has spoken widely on partnership working and industrial relations
A union activist since the 1980’s, David Williams has been a UNISON Steward at United Welsh since 1995 and was an integral part of the group that developed and implemented Partnership Working there. Now Partnership Manager at United Welsh, David still combines this role with union activity and has spoken widely on the United Welsh experience.
Download a copy of the United Welsh presentation here.
Workshops
Workshop 1 - Partnership Fund Projects
A total of 20 different project presentations were given at the event which included an outline of the project, the lessons learnt so far and top tips to pass on. Each of the successful projects has its own dedicated webpage here which we will be populating with as much information as we can as the projects progress, over the next week a summary of the progress to date and contact details for further information will be available.
Some projects are obviously further along than others, and the Princess Alexandra Hospital's new learning centre was opened on 4 March. The learning centre is available for managers and trade unions and educational targets will be set with the resultant improvements in the standards of literacy, numeracy and IT feeding back into improved patient care.
The Royal Bolton Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is also nearing completion of its project which focuses on a series of staff 'listening' events and recognises the importance of building on strong partnerships and draws on the link between staff engagement, continuous improvement and business success.
Workshop 2 - What does good local partnership look like?
The afternoon session involved delegates joining working groups to consider a set of questions around 'what is a model local partnership'. Feedback from the working groups can be viewed here.
Background to the award scheme
The partnership fund aimed to encourage and develop partnership working at local employer level within the NHS. The fund was financed by Department of Health developed in partnership through the Social Partnership Forum.
From the 45 bids referred to a national panel the fund was awarded to eighteen partnership projects.