Embrace working with what you’ve got

Another personal blog, the third in three days since I first went to the hospital with a pain in my leg, with learnings around “working with what you’ve got”.

To recap, on Sunday morning I went to a major hospital in London for tests that indicated I had developed DVT in one leg. Yesterday, Monday morning, I was brought back for an ultrasound that showed, yup, a deep vein clot. I then sat with a specialist who balanced being incredibly fun and funny with giving me the serious instruction that I am to follow precisely, then I will be absolutely fine within three weeks. Phew.

I was amused as the specialist went through the printed instructions, one of which was “no flying for six weeks”. In the current environment, we both laughed, but prior to the pandemic I honestly can’t remember the last time I would have gone six weeks without flying to see and work with clients.

I sit here (with my leg up, of course!) considering how we do adapt to working with what we’ve got. As it happens, this weekend I will be going to Canada to facilitate an annual meeting for a national Canadian health charity. Of course, I won’t be “going”, we will run it on Zoom, and that also means that members of the meeting from Newfoundland to BC and provinces in between will also attend without all the travel time to go to Toronto (as we all did this weekend last year). No, Zoom will not replace face to face, but the time we have spent innovating to hold this meeting online will build some new way of workings. Canada is a geographically vast country, so we will have innovated fast as a result of the pandemic.

Now, the specific learning for me with being around numerous NHS professionals is that it makes a huge difference to embrace the opportunity to work with what you’ve got, rather than to sit in a space of waiting for everything to “come back to normal”.

The NHS is famously under-resourced, particularly over the last ten years or so. However, at a time of crisis, what did I notice in the energy of the teams at the hospital? These professionals actually appeared to be revelling in the opportunity to work with what they’ve got, to live the passion they have for delivering world-class health care services to patients, to find ways to deliver even under extreme stress caused by separating the hospital into “Red” (Covid19) and “Green” (everything else) areas.

Yes, I fervently hope the UK Government shifts priorities to both honour and resource the NHS more as a result of awareness brought to the vital nature of this national treasure. Beyond that, though, I can already tell that the amazing professionals at all levels and in all areas in the NHS, through embracing working with what they’ve got, will have created innumerable innovations that will remain with them and the NHS into the future.

So, work with what you’ve got and embrace it, and by embracing it you will emerge with lots of innovative ways you will have improved the way you work.