Leading change through collaboration with Jackie Pratt, Assistant Director of OD and Leadership, NHS Greater Manchester
Jackie Pratt, Assistant Director of Organisational Development (OD) and Leadership, NHS Greater Manchester has been tackling system working and organisational development challenges across the footprint since 2018.
Jackie started this journey while working at the NHS North West Leadership Academy, and then transferred her leadership and talent expertise to become OD Lead across 13 of the different health and social care providers that made up the Oldham Care Alliance.
During her time at Oldham Cares, Jackie focused on creating the conditions for good culture and effective leadership, to bring organisations together with different priorities to deliver on the population needs for the Oldham locality. Moving next into the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, as the System Talent Management Lead, Jackie worked on developing system talent, not just in healthcare but across wider public services as well. This involved bringing together NHS, VCSE, local authorities and wider services to create change and grow talent across GM. During Covid, Jackie was deployed first to the NHS Nightingale Hospital North West and later the mass vaccination programme at the Etihad Tennis Centre. As part of the organisational design team, she worked at pace to deliver urgent facilities and a huge workforce structure.
Responding to change
When the ten Greater Manchester Clinical Commissioning Groups, Shared Service and Health and Social Care Partnership merged to form the new ICB, NHS Greater Manchester (NHS GM), Jackie’s role evolved to encompass all of her previous experience. Now Jackie’s portfolio primarily focuses on OD and leadership but also includes culture, talent, staff engagement, and system leadership. Jackie oversees the learning and development function too. NHS GM’s OD and Culture team provides expert consultancy to senior leads across the GM system to enable the development of leaders with the aim of fostering system leadership mindset, capabilities and talent.
Jackie has led the OD programme through periods of significant change in NHS GM. With the latest national NHS reforms, there is a renewed focus on evolving how the organisation functions, in line with ICB’s refreshed role as strategic commissioners and the development of a new operating model. In light of reform, there are huge workforce challenges being faced across Greater Manchester:
“We’re not the only ones facing these challenges, NHS providers are experiencing them as well, particularly in relation to corporate services. This presents two key challenges: firstly, how we, as an internal organisation, completely change our operating model; and how do we do that with the system while the system’s going through so much significant change? It feels like a really uncertain time. And these challenges are not unique to the NHS – local authorities, VCSE and wider public services are also facing financial challenges.”
In this context of change and shifting cultures, Jackie reflects on her leadership approach working with the OD team:
“We have been exploring of our strengths individually and as an OD and Leadership team, and for me…it’s really helped me to understand the strengths I personally bring – I’m really good at convening spaces, bringing people along on the journey, and around influencing – I spend a lot of time thinking about how can I really influence leadership and culture to create systemic changes for the wider GM system.”
“Because as an OD team, and particularly an OD senior leadership team, we are not only supporting and leading the change through an organisational design, cultural and leadership perspective we’re impacted by the changes ourselves as well. So it’s a difficult space…Having supportive conversations with other people that are going through similar challenges but then trying to convene people to think about ‘is this really an opportunity where we can do things really differently?’”
“How do we then avoid doing this the same as we’ve always done, falling down the same pit holes, but start to really think about it through looking at health inequalities and the needs of the GM population; not just health but also care needs, for people that are facing multiple disadvantages as well.”
“A lot of my OD practice and style is definitely from a relational perspective. I bring that relational side of my practice through treating people with kindness and compassion. I adopt this approach with how I lead and influence my team. And I have the most wonderful team…I feel fortunate through all this change that we focus on how we look after each other and have really open, honest and transparent conversations.”
Jackie explains how the NHS North West Leadership Academy membership offer has been a vital tool to enable OD initiatives:
“Through times of significant change, our ability to work flexibly with the NHS North West Leadership Academy has strengthened resilience as an OD and Leadership team. I’ve worked really closely with Suzanne [Douglas, Senior System Lead for Greater Manchester], so that when we’ve identified that we need support through the NHS North West Leadership Academy, I’ve been involved in deciding who will be working with us from the very early stages. By engaging early and treating external partners as part of our team, we’ve built trusted relationships that enable us to navigate challenges confidently. This collaborative approach has created safe spaces for honest dialogue and empowered us to address issues that might otherwise have remained unresolved.”
“Everything we have done through the bespoke offer has been co-designed, co-developed and co-facilitated. This has then meant, when they’ve stepped back from the work, we’ve been able to continue it, providing us with a sustainable solution.”
A key focus of support has been around board development, tailored to NHS GM’s leadership structure and an executive team developing their relationships while leading an organisation through change.
“We’ve worked to embed an assessment around board effectiveness and we’ve been able to flex in terms of that support. The way NHS GM’s board is set up is different to what a trust board would look like because while we have a chair, executive directors and our non-execs, we also have partner members from across the whole system.”
“We’ve been able to take that board on a journey where there’s been really difficult decisions and conversations. They have needed and we’ve been able to create psychological safety in that board space, as well as identify where their development needs are. So, we’ve now got a draft development plan for 2025-26 that’s been co-designed following all the work that we’ve been doing with the group.”
System leadership in practice
NHS GM have also utilised NHS North West Leadership Academy membership bespoke support to explore how to develop the vital skills, capability and capacity for system leadership and governance, creating system leaders of the future.
“We’ve been able to set up a system leadership group which involves all leaders from across the GM footprint. This trust chief executives, NHS GM leadership team, place leadership as well as leaders from primary care and voluntary sector. It’s been a real journey, focused on getting better outcomes for the population of GM, by breaking down silos and encouraging that collaborative leadership approach and a system leadership mindset.”
“We utilise all of our executive coaching [places] every year. It’s been so valuable ensuring that each member of our executive team has access to an executive coach, but also the flexibility of working with Suzanne and the team ensures that there’s never any conflict in terms of the different coaches that we’re working with. We can look at who are potentially good coaches for different individuals based on their needs.”
“The NHS North West Leadership Academy has been flexible in helping us think creatively about what else they can offer that’s responsive to what we need. And we’re building sustainability all the time through developing those strong relationships.”
Executive Coaching
The NHS North West Leadership Academy provides access to quality-assured external executive coaches for executive leaders of member organisations.
Executive coaching provides an opportunity to focus on personal career journeys or challenges, explore solutions, and increase levels of confidence as a leader.
Email [email protected] if you are interested in accessing executive coaching.
This is a critical stage in the development of ICBs, as they evolve to become strategic commissioners and to meet the goals of the 10 Year Health Plan. Jackie’s insights show how OD teams play a vital role in leading change, and how collaboration with partners like the NHS North West Leadership Academy can support them.