This is how max20 Project Solutions continued to work with Norfolk and Waveney University Hospitals Group to develop their Benefits Plan to maximise the likelihood of successful ownership and delivery of their EPR Benefits Framework.

This wholly collaborative piece of work was with the EPR Change and Benefits workstream, alongside NWUHG’s key operational and governance functions. The work began with the detail and recommendations as outlined from their full business case (FBC) and the outputs from max20 Project Solutions phase 1 recommendations and products.

Using our established step-review and sprint model, the work was completed over a 12-week period, with outputs which allowed NWUHG to identify their own work schedules and challenges ahead for delivery, planning, and continued confidence in how the EPR solution, the programme, and the organisations would come to realise those benefits.

Taking NWUHG’s Benefits Strategy and Statement of Planned Benefits and developing the enablers, risks, and validating the benefits models.

max20 Project Solutions initial work established a singular Benefits Strategy and Statement of Planned Benefits (SoPB) for the group based upon their business requirements, full business case, and their business case benefits profiles. In the course of that work, five key recommendations were identified for which NWUHG engaged with max20 for this second phase of work, namely –

• Revalidation and preparation of the SoPB for baselining and realisation.
• Moving from a functional Benefits Plan visualiser to a fully usable and scalable Benefits Accelerator Dashboard.
• Establishing a single operating procedure (SOP) for managing electronic clinical documentation proposal and change.
• Understanding the Quality Improvement and Service Development position across the trusts and identifying the next steps required for them post-EPR implementation.
• Reviewing and supporting the development of a single EPR Service Desk model.

– Jonathan Harrowven, EPR Programme Manager for Transformation and Adoption

Reviewing, assuring, and owning – putting each Benefit in context of a required change

Through interviews, workshops, and open discussion, the max20 team, comprising a Project Director, a Senior Change and Benefit Associate, and an expert Benefit Analyst, undertook focussed work to review, propose, and ratify the following products, reflecting real experiences, uncertainties, and ambitions of leads and all associated professions of NWUHG. This work focussed upon the delivery of:

Revalidation and preparation of the SoPB for baselining and realisation.

Working with the new EPR Benefits Team, each of the benefits identified in the SoPB was reviewed and revalidated with max20 to maximise its definition, scope, and value. This will allow closer tracking of requirements and enablers for the EPR Programme and change work, and then post-go-live and in the move to the EPR being business as usual for NWUHG.

Establishing the move from a functional Benefits Plan visualiser to a fully usable and scalable Benefits Accelerator Dashboard.

At the conclusion of Phase1, max20 provided the Transformation and Adoption workstream with a visualiser of the SoPB. During Phase 2, the visualiser was developed into a robust and functional Benefits Accelerator Dashboard that now allows for planning, monitoring, reporting, and managing current, proposed, and retired benefits. This new solution also provides an enhanced visualisation tool making it accessible for all levels of Trust and Programme who want to understand the current state of the benefits strategy and plan.

Establishing a single operating procedure (SOP) for managing electronic clinical documentation proposal and change.

While identifying the change enabler work in the first phase, 19 of the 37 benefits had a high dependency upon a single process for managing and maintaining digital clinical documents. max20 worked with the key programme workstreams – CXIO, Design and Build, Transformation and Adoption, as well as the cross-NWUHG Governance functions for clinical pathways and safety. A single SOP that includes the future functions and tools for EPR Clinical Documents was delivered and can now be implemented during the cutover of the EPR Programme. As a part of this work, support was also provided to the non-EPR governance areas to ensure that their critical requirements and contributions were able to be reflected and aligned to the parts of the SOP when they are operationally ready.

Understanding and describing the foundations for quality improvement and service development within the component trusts and identifying the business-as-usual needs.

Preparing for ongoing Benefit Realisation and ownership of future change work will not remain with the EPR Programme post-go live. NHS England have a robust readiness and maturity matrix that reflects the current position of both an organisations’ and the programme’s change and quality improvement model. max20 worked with each aspect of this to produce individual and programme level maturity assessments, provided a gap-analysis, and a plan for delivery of the next steps for a single Quality Improvement and Service Development model that will support the EPR management and future benefits maximisation.

Reviewing and supporting the development of a single EPR and IT Service Desk model.

Within Phase1 there was unsurety as to the readiness and capacity of the 3 separate Digital Service Desks to support a single, cross-organisational, 24-hour EPR solution. max20 worked with the Trust and Group Leads for Service Desk redesign to identify benefits, challenges, risks, and opportunities with the proposed model thereby increasing confidence in the Benefits which have dependency upon end-user capability and robust infrastructure support.

– Jonathan Harrowven, EPR Programme Manager for Transformation and Adoption

max20 continued with their successful structured review framework, including weekly updates and reports to executive and steering groups thus ensuring consistency and shared understanding across the Trusts. This maintained sight for both the EPR Programme and max20 Project Solutions across all areas of the programme and organisations allowing the work to be delivered on time and to the desired and expected quality.

– Jonathan Harrowven, EPR Programme Manager for Transformation and Adoption

max20 Project Solutions & Outcomes

When NWUHG were looking for an experienced partner for Benefits Review, Strategy, and Planning to continue to support their EPR implementation, they knew they could rely on max20 to deliver results in the timescale. max20’s approach continues to underscore the value of tailored frameworks, stakeholder collaboration, and real-time insights to unlock the full potential of NHS Digital initiatives, which is fundamental for organisations looking to optimise their digital transformation journey. 

5 detailed Benefits products, 1 vision of the requirements for benefits success

At close of engagement, max20 always provide a detailed handover workshop to a specific and expert audience. This time it was split into 2 parts –

• Executive attendees in the morning to help them to understand their roles and where they must push the organisations now and in the future;
• EPR Programme and workstream leads in the afternoon to work these expectations into a realistic plan.

The session provided further detail to delivered gap analyses, plans, and recommendation report relating to the benefits framework and its implementation dependencies and success. It also allowed discussion as to the cross-alignment of operational risk assessments to programme risk, and knowledge-sharing across business and governance areas.

As always, where the NHSE model understandably looks to defining the procured digital solution enablers for the benefits, both NWUHG and max20 recognised the need for a comprehensive understanding of the Programme and Organisational aspects too. This approach continued and the responsibilities for driving key enabling work such as engagement, governance, and long-term management of the benefits plan post-Programme could be clearly articulated.

By developing upon the enabler-led, benefits strategy and providing tools that Trusts can adapt, track, and update iteratively, max20 have put NWUHG into a position so that they may demonstrate meaningful, measurable progress even before the EPR programme’s go-live phase. This case story demonstrates how the max20 Benefits Accelerator Model combines human-centred-design principles with Service Change and Development initiatives and in this case keeps them aligned to NWUHG’s digital ambitions and bespoke digital solutions.

This model from max20 Project Solutions positions an organisation to establish and prepare to make measurable improvements, to strengthen and evidence their strategic decision-making, and supports the adoption of benefits across any transformation initiative for any complex healthcare ecosystems.

– Jonathan Harrowven, EPR Programme Manager for Transformation and Adoption

In numbers:

• 4 defined sprints
• 4 QIMAT assessments completed
• 1 Programme level, and 3 organisation level Statements of Planned Benefits
• 4 workshops with over 60 participants to define content and enablers of 37 benefits
• 1 end of project workshop and handover toolkit with 50+ participants to explore recommendations, enablers, readiness, and the Benefits Accelerator Dashboard