Daryl Harris and Linda Tremain
Aneurin Bevan University Health Board
Project Background:
On the 10th April 1912 the Titanic set sail on its maiden voyage from Southampton. Five days later it broke apart and sank to the bottom of the ocean after striking an iceberg. The Titanic was fuelled by coal from the Rhondda. Clearly the coal was not the issue. The issue was the iceberg. The survival lesson being the importance of recognising the size of the challenges ahead when plotting the course.
Outcomes Focussed:
Health and care services are sailing at pace towards a huge iceberg. If, unlike the Titanic, we are going to avoid sinking it will not be enough to build a stronger hull. We need to change course. A course that starts with outlining the outcomes the project intends to achieve. If we don’t know where we are headed, how do we know if we are heading in the right direction? We start with the ‘why’, then the ‘how’, ‘what’ and ‘so what’.
Project Collaborators: The “Who”
For those who are old enough to remember, ‘The Who’ is not the band. It is the people who have a stake in the Why. It is the wellbeing of these people that the project aims to support. These people include, health and care workers, people living life following stroke and brain injury, their friends and family.
The intention is that all participants in the Neuro-Stute experience a sense of psychological wellbeing.
Intended Outcomes: The “Why”
In broad terms the intended outcome of the project is that people living and working with the effects of long-term neurological conditions are able to recover and/or discover a way of living a satisfying, hopeful, and purposeful life, even within any limitations caused by illness or scarce resources. In 1993 William Anthony described this as personal recovery achieved through a “deeply personal unique process of changing one’s attitudes, values, feelings, goals, skills, and roles.”
Project Aims and Objectives: The “How”
The ‘how’ defines the strategies adopted to achieve the outcomes. These are the ingredients that form the base for all of the day-to-day activities of the Neuro-Stute. Collectively these are the ‘What’.
Project Approach: The “What”
The Neuro-Stute is made up of modules and workshops that are co-designed and co-facilitated by team members and people with lived experience of neurological conditions.
Project Impact: The “So What”
The ‘So What’ is the impact on what matters.
- Prudent use of all resource – more for less
- Capable communities – more capable staff and more capable communities
- Added value – what matters most to staff and patients?
The Most Significant Change Method (MSC) was used to explore what matters most to stakeholders in neuro rehabilitation. The themes were:
