I’ve been the director of a digital agency, a freelance consultant, and a civil servant. Here are some of the notable pieces of work I’ve been involved in:

Clinical placements management service for NHS England

I led a discovery phase to explore the possibility of a national service for organising and managing clinical placements in the NHS.  

The research revealed big unmet needs for workforce planners and policy makers (“we spend £3.5 billion on placements, but we don’t know how many actually happen”), lots of inefficiency and regional and local variation in process and tools, and high levels of frustration and unmet needs amongst learners (“I don’t know where my next placement will be”). There was a compelling need for something better, but there were lots of options for what that thing might be.

After the discovery, I came back to help get the work moving again (after lots of internal NHS England changes) and help facilitate decision-making. Then I drafted the business case and roadmap to deliver a new national service, starting with nursing placements.     

Note: This is one of 40ish discovery or alpha phases I led as director of Lagom Strategy. See a list of other similar projects that I’ve worked on.

Road freight data service for Department for Transport

I led a discovery phase to explore road freight data for the Department for Transport.

Road freight data had been collected from hauliers via a burdensome paper process. We recommended a modern digital data collection, but also ways to accommodate the diversity of the haulage industry (e.g. tiny operators with few resources, versus massive haulage companies using sophisticated software).

The alpha that followed included a machine learning experiment to address unmet user needs by flagging potential anomalies to hauliers.

Note: This is one of several similar pieces of work I did about transport, included on the National Travel Survey, Road Accidents In-Depth data, and local authority data collection.

Adult social care workforce data “magic button” for Skills for Care

Skills for Care collect data about the social care workforce, but parts of the service are burdensome. I led work with social care software suppliers to explore ways to automate data transfer via APIs. 

The diversity of the sector meant that there was no magic button to solve all data transfer issues, but we did recommend pilot work to explore more automated data transfer where it was possible.     

Note: I’ve done lots of similar work in social care. Read 7 things I’ve learned about social care by doing research in social care.

Apprenticeships service – HIT Training

HIT Training is one of the biggest apprenticeship providers in the UK, especially in catering and social care. I led work to explore how apprentices were onboarded to their service.

Our review found some well-functioning business processes, and a technically accessible digital service. But a user interview with a dyslexic user revealed her emotional distress when faced with online functional skills assessment. Sharing this (with her consent) led to a refreshed, emotionally-sensitive design and user journey.

Note: An inclusivity assessment to understand issues around connectivity, capability and accessibility was essential part of most Lagom projects.  

Digital diplomacy for the Foreign Office

I established “digital diplomacy” as a thing at the Foreign Office, helping diplomats to embrace internet culture to conduct diplomacy. 

I helped manage a global web platform, with teams in Singapore, Washington DC and New Delhi, and created one of the first government blogging platforms. 

I did some slightly silly things (a climate summit hosted in Second Life), but also some really important and groundbreaking pieces of work (talking to the Vietnamese government about the open internet, collaborating with the State Department, feeding digital engagement into the G20 London Summit).

Note: Read some of my blogs about digital diplomacy.

Strategy survival guide for the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit

I created a guide to doing strategy work in government, while at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit. 

It looks fairly antiquated now (in the web archive), but there was nothing else like it around at the time, and the content holds up.

Note: This was quite a long time ago, but you can still see versions of this in the web archive.

Digital strategy  – Department of Health 

I developed and delivered the digital strategy for the Department of Health (over several iterations). 

The strategy embedded digital approaches in policy-making, built capability, improved services, and assured the digital spend of all the health and care ALBs, and it included a programme of exemplar projects. 

The most recent published version committed the department to: Openness, Simplicity, Evidence, Mainstream, Efficiency. 

Note: Read the strategy, published on GOV.UK

The NHS finance service for NHS England

I led discovery work into the Integrated Single Financial Environment (ISFE) for NHS England. 

ISFE processes £150bn of NHS spend annually (or 6% of the UK’s GDP) and its reprocurement was classified as a major project, so was subject to multiple levels of assurance in addition to digital assurance. 

The discovery made significant recommendations to improve the user experience, as well as pragmatic recommendations to navigate the complex assurance needed, and manage risk. 

Note: I led lots of work in health and care at Lagom. See other projects I’ve worked on.

Global learning strategy for Wellcome Connecting Science

The Wellcome Connecting Science mission is to enable global audiences to explore genomic science and its impact on research, health and society. 

I led work with them to design research and engagement with their global community to develop a 5 year strategy for training and capacity building.

Note: I’ve led lots of research like this about genomics education, for Health Education England and Wellcome Connecting Science.

Capability reviews

I’ve led digital and communications capability reviews for Defra, MHCLG, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

For each, I conducted research and reviewed outputs, ran workshops with staff and consulted stakeholders, and assessed operating models against peers and best practice models, before making practical recommendations for improving capability.

DH2020 change programme for the Department of Health

On a secondment from my digital role at the Department of Health, I led a workstream of DH2020, the major change programme to make the department learner and better (and with headcount reduced by a third).

I led a big engagement programme with staff, consultation with other departments, ALBs and the Government Communications Service, and developed options for the department to consider and act on.

Note: Read some of my blogs about this work on my DH blog at the time.