Case study:
Central North West London NHS Trust
Executive Team Development in a Changing NHS Landscape
Our client
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) is one of the largest NHS trusts in the UK. It provides a wide range of healthcare services to a diverse population across a significant portion of London. CNWL offers services in mental health, community health, and integrated care, striving to deliver high-quality, compassionate care to its patients.
We were asked to support the COO in developing her Executive Team. Read below her feedback on our approach, their experience, and the impact we made:
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What made you reach out for this support?
I was building a new team of 12 senior leaders who were responsible for the clinical and managerial running of the whole trust. Initially I knew we would need some away time as a team to think about our challenges and how we would work together. From previous experience we thought that working with Ambito would be a good fit. What was obvious early on was that we would need to do this regularly to enable us to step back and reflect on what we were aiming to do, to change the culture within the organisation.
What was the experience like?
After a year of quarterly days away, it became clear to me and the Chief Nurse and Chief Medical Director that we were definitely benefitting from having a team coach and working with Ambito, taking time out of our busy clinical and operational days.
What did it enable?
We were able to operate at a more authentic level together and were able to refocus on our strategy for the next 3-6 months. We were able to build trust within the team and were able to accommodate people leaving well, with new people joining and getting to understand the culture of the team. It enabled us to understand what we needed to do differently as leaders to create trust and to set a new tone so our teams reporting to us could manage the challenges brought by the regulator at the time, and we were able to contain and support them in a very different way.
What was the impact?
We had a better outcome than expected, we built trust, and we stayed strong together, performing better than before. The trust built was critical in managing the challenges facing us, such as leading an organisation through a global pandemic.
What else comes up for you?
I can't think how any teams manage to build trust and reflect on the challenges they face if there isn’t space to step back from the day-to-day operation together as a team on a regular basis. I would also advocate having a team coach as it gives the leaders the opportunity to play a different role in the team and gain a different perspective.