The Real Work Experience

Service Improvement at Wigan Renal Unit

Posted on Wednesday 23 July, 2008

A Couple of months ago I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to work on a service improvement project in Wigan renal Unit. The unit is a Satellite of Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust that provides patients with renal dialysis closer to their home without having to go into hospital. The emphasis on the project is to enhance patient and staff experiences. This will be achieved by addressing the key issues by using co-design and user centred design processes.

The first stage of the project involved me visiting the Renal Unit for the day.

During this time i did observations and chatted to patients and staff to hear their stories and thoughts about the unit. Whist i was there i realised what a niche service this is for the patients, they use it three times a week, it is essential that their start to finish journey is methodical and the whole process can often take up to 7 hours, and they are dependant on it to keep them alive

However although this is the case i have never met a group of people that were more upbeat and positive, they were great! They know they need this treatment, but they get on with it and make the most of it. The patients and staff have a real family vibe between them, they are all treated with equality rather than a division between staff and patients, it was very refreshing.

After a full day spent at the unit and a good discussion and mini brainstorming session with Dr Hegarty the renal consultant we had devised a good action plan and specific areas to approach. Some of these are

• Re-designing the waiting areas to make them more accessible and engaging for the patients.

• Creating a new sign system to provide better flow throughout the unit and more visual focus

• Creating a community notice board, and inspiration wall where patients and staff can express themselves and feedback on what they would like to see and do within WRU in the future

• Work directly with patients to understand how their treatment experience can be more enjoyable, and involve them with the changes that will be made.

• Run a short workshop to help the nurses pinpoint the problems within their staff areas and come up with accessible solutions. At the same time teaching them simple service improvement methods for them to carry out themselves in the future.

Since visiting the Renal Unit for the first time I have bee preparing for my next visit to implement some of the more visual changes, run activities with the patients and workshops with the staff.

This project has been fab so far, I love the work I’ve been doing, working alongside the staff and patients has been incredible, and seeing them get excited about the ideas and being involved with the design process is great, they really deserve to feel a sense of satisfaction and achievement for their attitudes and enthusiasm.

Northumbria designer needed!

Posted on Monday 14 April, 2008

The Breast Feeding Peer Support group, are a group of volunteers dedicated to spreading the health benefits of breast feeding to mothers in and around Northumbria.

The Breast Feeding Peer Support group are in the process of growing and are looking to work with a designer, based in or around Northumbria.

This is an opportunity to:

Work with The Breast Feeding Peer Support group to design a prototype toolkit that supports the work they do.

Design a local marketing campaign that helps people understand the benefits of breast feeding.

If this sounds like something you’d like to be involved in, or would like more information, get in touch at hello@therealworkexperience.com.

Projects in the public sector

Posted on Wednesday 26 March, 2008

Recently through thinkpublic i was lucky enough to begin a project for an NHS renal unit in Wigan. The project is to co-design and implement solutions to improve the patient experience while they recieve their dialysis. I am running the project along side the renal consultant, doctors, patients and nurses, which is something that i believe to be a valuable experience and learning process. I think putting design graduates in similar situations; (doing voluntery projects within public sector organisations) would be amazing as it would let both sides see the possibilities to collaborate and use design thinking/process to impove areas of public services. I think my example shows perfectly how “the real work experience” is an amazing initiative and that is it hugely about bridging the gap between the two bodies, make the contact betwwen them and understanding each other.

1 comment latest by Deborah

Making things better

Posted on Thursday 06 March, 2008

How can we make this website more useful?

RSA Design Direction Judging

Posted on Thursday 06 March, 2008

Yesterday I was judging the RSA engage project. It was exciting to see how the design students who had responded to the brief, had been through a real learning experience. They had learnt how they could use their design skills outside the design sector. It was great to hear them talking so passionately about social issues which they could see how their design skills could add value and help improve. We need more of these competitions and hopefully this is something that The Real Work Experience can help to support.

Moving forward

Posted on Thursday 28 February, 2008

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we are all working away planning the next steps for the real work experience. We will post up more info as soon as we have more details.

Mind the Gap - Re:designing the Public Sector

Posted on Tuesday 15 January, 2008

We all want good public services. When we get them we say thank you. When we’re disappointed we should say “wouldn’t it be better if…?”

thinkpublic and Ideal Government invite everyone to help design better public services in a new competition called “Mind the Gap”. It’s for designers and for anyone who cares about better public services.

It’s a collaboration between thinkpublic’s ‘The Real Work Experience’ programme for design graduates and Ideal Government’s “Wibbipedia” programme to collect ideas about how public services could be better.

Sound interesting? Find out more!

social design course

Posted on Sunday 02 December, 2007

In response to Deborah’s prompt of ‘What would/could a social design course include?’ This is a potential outcome I’m really excited about and I would be interested to hear from students/graduates/designers and professionals what such a course might involve.

If a course existed that helped bridge the gap between design and public sector, I see it as a space and environment where:

- designers are taught about the public sector.

- designers learn to see their skills in a different light, and learn to adapt them into other sectors.

- designers would take their ideas beyond the creative industries.

- designers start sharing/applying their thought processes to outside areas.

- professionals share successful case studies of projects that use design in different ways.

-professionals from the public sector and designers are able to brainstorm the opportunities of how and where collaboration can be successful.

What other aspects need to be covered within this course and how could the course exist?

5 comments latest by Rachel

Feedback from professionals

Posted on Monday 26 November, 2007

Hello…

If any professionals have comments and/or feedback from the day please can you add them as a comment to this post.

Thanks : )

1 comment latest by Alice

Feedback from graduates

Posted on Monday 26 November, 2007

Hello…

If any graduates have comments and/or feedback from the day please can you add them as a comment to this post.

Thanks : )

1 comment latest by Alice

Feedback from students

Posted on Monday 26 November, 2007

Hello…

If any students have comments and/or feedback from the day please can you add them as a comment to this post.

Thanks : )

Design or not design?

Posted on Monday 26 November, 2007

How do you define this ‘type’ of design, or isn’t it design?

6 comments latest by Rachel

So what and where next...?

Posted on Friday 23 November, 2007

I’d like to start by thanking everyone who contributed to the Real Work Experience Event. I felt it was a great start to an interesting and timely conversation about how designers can work better with the public sector and vice versa.

The concept of developing a work experience programme for design students and graduates to gain experience of the public sector, felt like the tip of an iceberg for other great ideas that could really make a difference in improving communications and connections within this area. Some of the other opportunities we started to identify from the events conversations include:

- What could an online network look like and what would be discussed in this space?

- What would networking events for designers and public sector professionals include? Where would they be and how often?

- Who can we work with to connection these conversations between grassroots and policy, to ensure this concept spreads?

- What would a social design course include?

- What types of live projects are feasible to develop and run between design students/ graduates and the public sector?

- What types of courses could be developed for public sector professionals to understand more about working with designers?

- Is there potential to develop role swapping events and observational visits to support practical learning for both sectors?

I’m really keen that we develop a space to connect conversations between designers and public sector professionals, as I feel this is how we can really start to build a shared understanding and language of how each sector works. Whilst starting to identify what needs to be done to ensure that designers can work with the public sector to make positive improvements for all. We aim for this website to be the start of a conversation and would invite you to join the network and added comments and work with us to grow this social networking and learning space. Over to you…