Newham Older Adults Shaping Their Future

 By Sian Bowl, Newham Performance Lead

Recently, members of the Older Adults Community team in Newham, came together to spend some time reflecting on the changes the service has made in response to COVID-19, and to think about the way the service could look in the future, facilitated by colleagues from the QI, Performance, and People Participation teams.

The session started with an icebreaker, asking the team to name their favourite foods, in order to introduce the website, Menti.com, which was to be used for the main exercise.

Following this exercise, the team were then asked to reflect on all the changes from the previous three months, and consider the changes through the following four categories: things stopped in response to COVID-19 that the team want to restart; things stopped in response to COVID-19 that don’t need to be restarted; things started in response to COVID-19 that can be stopped; and things started in response to COVID-19 that the team want to continue, and amplify.

Figure 1. Collective sense-making output from the Newham Older Adults Community team.

As the team shared their thoughts in the Menti. com survey, they were simultaneously able to see the responses of their colleagues, which allowed the facilitators to identify themes and similarities in the responses. Time was then provided for the team to discuss the themes that had arisen, as well as possible next steps.

Figure 2. Pareto Chart highlighting some of the things started during COVID -19 that the Newham Older Adults Community team would like to continue.

At the end of the workshop, the team decided that they would like to spend more time reflecting on these discussions, in their own time, after the session. Staff members would be identified to be part of working groups, to take forward any ideas for change. The working groups would then come together with the workshop facilitators, to think about next steps.

Newham Older Adults Operational Team Lead, Lesley Smith commented, “The meeting helped to formulate staff thoughts around how we were working pre-COVID-19, throughout COVID-19, and future practice. Menti helped staff to respond in a safe, anonymous space, which helps with those who do not like to speak out on a virtual call. Some good feedback was collated, and each discipline will have a spokesperson to attend future meetings on shaping the new normal, using the formulation completed by the facilitators.”