{"id":7940,"date":"2022-04-27T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=article&p=7940"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:11:37","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:11:37","slug":"innovation-under-pressure-how-the-nhs-in-wales-has-enabled-its-people-to-thrive-during-the-pandemic-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/innovation-under-pressure-how-the-nhs-in-wales-has-enabled-its-people-to-thrive-during-the-pandemic-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovation Under Pressure: How the NHS in Wales Has Enabled its People to Thrive During the Pandemic \u2013 Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n 27 Apr 2022 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Innovation Under Pressure: How the NHS in Wales Has Enabled its People to Thrive During the Pandemic \u2013 Part II<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/innovation-under-pressure-how-the-nhs-in-wales-has-enabled-its-people-to-thrive-during-the-pandemic-part-ii\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n\n\n
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By Dr Peter Brown and Dr Adrian Neal<\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is the second instalment of our three-part series exploring the parallels between high performance sport and healthcare, drawing upon our experiences past and present within the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (ABUHB) which serves southeast Wales, UK.<\/h6>\n

In our first article<\/a>, we described the context of operational delivery over the past two years of the pandemic, the effect this has had, and continues to have, upon the workforce in healthcare and the comparisons between healthcare and performance sport: specifically in relation to performance plans and outcomes.<\/p>\n

The pandemic continues to have a significant impact upon the delivery of all NHS services in Wales and across the UK. Most services (clinical and corporate) are feeling the exhaustive pressure of increased demand for clinical services, disrupted service models, record levels of staff absence (linked to sickness or self-isolation) and the weariness associated with responding to the recent Covid surges.<\/p>\n

However, like many disruptive forces it has also given opportunities for innovation and creativity and this instalment of our three-part series explores the key opportunities for innovation within the ABUHB in response to the pandemic.<\/p>\n

The leader’s choice within a crisis <\/strong><\/p>\n

Without using the phrase lightly, the NHS is operating within a crisis. As an organisation, many of our clinical and administrative teams have been redeployed from their normal roles to mass vaccination clinics and\/or to help on wards with various tasks. We\u2019ve been pulled from pillar to post both metaphorically and often literally. But despite this context, there is a choice to be made by leaders. Do you a) roll over and admit defeat or b) use it to your advantage and harness the opportunity a crisis brings. In the ABUHB Organisational Development and Wellbeing Teams, we\u2019ve stood up to this disruptive force, looked it square in the eyes and chosen to use it to our advantage and innovate.<\/p>\n

When working in a crisis, it’s no good doing the same old things in the same old ways. You need to be able to flex, adapt, and evolve to the situation.<\/p>\n

Two key theoretical frameworks have supported and enabled our thinking during this: i) complex adaptive systems and ii) Three Motivation System model[1]<\/a>. What is fascinating is that the optimal way to function in a crisis and complexity according to complexity science is somewhat opposite to people\u2019s and organisation\u2019s natural autonomic response. Complex adaptive systems present us a novel lens of making sense of our environment in order to act within it. Specifically using the Cynefin framework which is part of the naturalising school of sensemaking tools, we know that we operate within one, multiple, or the liminal spaces of multiple systems. These systems may be ordered where cause and effect are linear, known and repeatable with robust or governing constraints; complex where cause and effect are only known in retrospect and enabling constraints are present and, lastly, chaos, where there are no effective constraints.<\/p>\n

By knowing the system you are in at a given time and the relative distance from the other systems by understanding the constraints of your environment, you create coherence enabling your leaders, people and the organisation to act with maximal understanding and minimal energy cost.<\/p>\n

Innovation within a crisis <\/strong><\/p>\n

Our present situation in this pandemic throws the NHS well and truly into chaos where there are (at times) no effective constraints. The absence of constraints has enabled us to act and try new ideas shifting us from a system of chaos to one of complexity. For leaders, this can be worrying and energy-sapping, on the other hand, it’s also liberating. The absence of constraints makes innovation possible, it allows ideas to emerge rapidly, for us to learn through self-organisation, rapidly adjust to our environment and to navigate our world by maximising our contextual understanding. It allows us to create some form of coherence within our system and nudge it back to a space where we have elements of control. Within ABUHB we have taken advantage of this creating several game changing interventions such as:<\/p>\n