Leadership Placement at SCFT: Enhancing Leadership Skills and Clinical Experience

Leadership Placement at SCFT Sandra Speller Professional Head of Therapies & Lead AHP

Why? National requirement to expand student placements during ongoing pandemic! Needed to lead the way: to inspire teams to think differently about diverse placement models during these challenging times; offering traditional student placements is particularly difficult in community teams - going out to treat patients in their own homes, the use of virtual appointments and covid safe requirements in offices etc; Student placements are important for staff recruitment = INSPIRE THEN HIRE!! I still continue to enjoy learning and think having students offers us all fantastic learning and personal development opportunities

Placement Objectives To gain an understanding of the breadth of leadership opportunities available for physiotherapy staff during their career to develop an understanding of senior structures in the organisation and across the local health and care system To gain an understanding of different leadership styles and the impact of leadership on patient outcomes and staff satisfaction To develop an understanding of the necessary leadership skills and attributes to support excellent healthcare services, using the NHS Leadership Model To begin to develop an understanding of self as a leader To undertake two projects working with Professional and Clinical Leads at SCFT, utilising own leadership skills and putting into practice learning To undertake clinical work and use this time to observe leadership in action in team settings, with staff and patients and put into practice some of the learning and skills gained on the placement in their patient interactions To be able to reflect on the impact of leadership styles - including their own, on patients and colleagues

How we met objectives 3 days focused on leadership project work and learning 2 days spent clinically 1 individual project and two joint projects with weekly progress reviews Weekly leadership discussion session with myself Opportunities to join Trust and ICS meetings to observe leadership in action Provision of resources to support students in starting to understand themselves personal values, personality type, strengths and opportunity to discuss and reflect on this

Draft timetable MON 07/09 TUES WEDS Clinical THURS FRI Clinical Clinical QIA/Project work Prep for clinical education training (project 4) AM Induction: Arundel Building, Brighton General 9am Project Work Clinical Project Work Clinical PM Advanced Clinical practice Forum (BGH) MON 14/09 TUES WEDS Clinical THURS FRI Professional Leads Meeting (adults) RRSG/Therapy catch up debrief Sussex AHP Council Meeting AM Clinical Project work Clinical Project Work Project Work PM Clinical MON 21/09 Project Work TUES Clinical WEDS THURS Clinical FRI Band 3 Planning meeting Coaching + way feedback AM Professional Advisory Group Clinical Project Work Clinical Project work PM

Project Example SCFT THINK FALLS PROJECT SUPPORT Student Project, September- October 2020 SCFT are getting ready to launch their Think Falls campaign for staff across both our community beds and our community teams. The Falls Steering Group are working with our Communications Department to prepare resources for this and the student involved with this project will help write, design and seek feedback particularly from patients and their families. Project Objectives: To be a member of the ICU (intermediate care units) MDT subgroup, who are working to develop suitable staff and patient resources. These may include leaflets, posters and quick guide cards. To consider the best way to collect some patient and staff feedback on the resources quickly, and design how you will do this. Undertake collection of feedback and report back to the group, so changes can be made. Using the SCFT Falls workbook consider the key important facts about falls prevention that non-clinical staff and students/new band 5s need to know before they start to work on the ward and design a key summary document. Whilst working with the design MDT group use your reading and understanding of leadership to observe different styles of communication and leadership, and the impact this may have on outcomes. Use your reflections to write a piece for your CPD journal.

Reflections: what went well Split of leadership and clinical: liked by the students - enabled them to observe impact of different styles on patients and staff, and reflect on what they had learnt Project work: these were relevant to work we were undertaking within the Trust. Important for students to see the range of tasks that they may be asked to become involved in that are essential for high quality, compassionate patient care outside of clinical delivery. Enabled students to work remotely from home and supported their ability to develop as autonomous practitioners Work to support students in understanding themselves: this had a powerful impact on both, which was observed by all involved in the placement. Ensure time offered for supported reflection. Ability to flex placement to support individual s interests: for example, one was particularly affected by reading the Francis Report and the impact of leadership on patient care. I was able to link her up with our FTSU guardian so she could understand the importance of this role. Another was keen to develop her use of media and understand how Comms can help take ideas and develop them into resources, so linked them in with members of our Comms teams

Reflections: what would I change next time? Reduce number of projects: 4 was too many, and one became bigger than initially anticipated Allow more opportunities because of the demands of project work there was less time for the students to observe and join some of the opportunities suggested for observation: If possible link the project work to the clinical area student working in: this helps better embed the learning across the whole placement

Hints and Tips Pre-reading lists essential Pre-placement meeting over Teams was very helpful in allaying student fears and answering questions Choosing students for such placements is important work with the HEIs to ensure the students are very engaged and ready to work in such an autonomous way Be flexible and adaptable and go with the flow to enable the students to explore what has sparked their interest Regular catch up opportunities over Teams is essential often only for 10 mins IT issues have to have Trust laptop so having dedicated laptops for students would be helpful

Impact of placement Have 5 offers to date of physiotherapy leadership placements in our teams professional leads, operational leads and clinical leads. Working on the other AHP professions! Opportunities for students writing articles, completing videos for CSP, developing resources, use of social media etc; etc;. Such great CPD for their portfolios! The project on leadership journeys and the newsletter developed has been very well received by staff across the Trust; staff fed back how inspired they were, and will be using some of the recommendations and ideas from those interviewed Opportunities to gain patient feedback raises the importance of the patient voice for students and substantive staff Enabled student to feel empowered to raise issues with a patient s racial comments with staff opportunity for learning and shape culture within the team Understanding of the benefits and challenges of team working and working with others opportunity to practice and reflect in a safe space