Chris Fleming
Partner
Goodbye health sector…Hello health, local government and charities!
Public Digital is growing. And through growth comes inevitable change. One of the consequences of that change is that the health team is expanding to encompass local government and charity work too. This is an exciting step forward but also means the end of a small but perfectly formed team of some incredibly talented people.
At Public Digital we celebrate starting things - and we celebrate stopping things too. We always make the space and time to reflect on what has passed - what went well, what could have gone better, and what we’ve learned.
So last week, we spent an afternoon reminiscing about our work over the last four years, so we could give the team a good send-off. This short scrapbook captures some of our memories.
Chris was the first into the team joining Public Digital in late 2020, ostensibly to work on the NHS Providers Digital Boards programme. The image below shows an artefact from Chris’s first week - a sort of ‘mind map’ of key concepts in digital transformation and the GDS story. Essentially a one page version of the PD book Digital Transformation at Scale. It has proven a faithful ally and useful prompt over the years for pithy insights on various aspects of digitally enabled change.
Digital Boards is a programme we still support today. In fact it has just relaunched for a new phase this week. It’s had fantastic feedback from participants, and has taken us and the brilliant NHSP team all over the country.
While PD colleagues were flying to Nigeria, Washington DC, Guadalajara - the health team took in the delights of...
Beyond NHS Providers we’ve had many other memorable client visits and experiences in the healthcare sector.
User research is a key part of much of our work. Which includes not just things like usability testing or semi structured interviews but also meeting people where they are. The below photo is from the installation of a GPS pendant for an elderly lady suffering from dementia, the start of our work in the care sector.
Some of our projects tested our artwork skills to their absolute limits. Working on a project with NHS England, we were asked to facilitate a retrospective using the “anchors and engines” structure i.e. what will weigh us down and what will propel us forward. Although we are blessed to work with many great designers in Public Digital, we don’t always have one on hand. 10/10 for effort Matt.
Like the rest of PD, the health team is also blessed with many highly gifted speakers and presenters who represented PD at a whole range of different events. A couple of honourable mentions
Tom presenting at Digital Health Leadership Summit having brought odd shoes. Odd as in, from two different pairs, rather than simply ‘strange’. No one noticed thanks to judicious concealment behind the lectern.
As a proud north-easterner by heritage it has perhaps been no coincidence that we have had the privilege of doing a fair bit of work in Newcastle, Durham and Teesside over the years.
One of our meeting rooms in PD is called the Calvert room after Margaret Calvert one of our CEO’s heroes. In the picture above you can see the Calvert Typeface on the Tyne and Wear Metro. Distinguished by its block serifs.
As well as stotties in Newcastle...
We’ve had some memorable moments with clients over the last four years. We’ve seen a CEO of a several hundred £m organisation fall asleep in our workshop. We’ve travelled hundreds of miles to reach clients only to be uninvited on arrival. We’ve cringed our way through a fair few car crash meetings. But through adversity comes strength and the excellent moments have vastly outnumbered the bad.
Here are just a few of the things our clients have said:
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“[PD’s work] really inspired us as a team and gave us a language to use together to lead transformation.”
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"Thank you so much... you are making such a big difference to people's lives doing this."
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“Public Digital are genuine subject matter experts, passionate about the digital agenda, and interested in getting to the root of the real problems.”
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“I get lots of consultancies telling me that they want to do 'meaningful work' but I've never come across one where every single person so actively, genuinely and obviously means it like the Public Digital team.”
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“This is not a deck that tells us what we’ve told you. It’s full of practical things, starters for 10, and we can all see a clear path for what we need to do next.”
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“We really appreciate all the remarkable work that has gone into the report. Your team has shown genuine care for our organisation and the individuals who you have met. It feels that you have put your heart and soul into the project to provide us with the insights and recommendations to move us forward as we further develop our services for those in need of our support.”
So goodbye then to the loveliest team any of us could have asked for.
And on to the next chapter.
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