Teamworking Across Health and Care

Our Spring Collaborative Learning Event put the topic of 'teamworking' into sharp focus, a topic that is relevant to all of our event attendees. We asked how can our knowledge of today’s teams support our work across NW London and the development of our research teams?

Fellows graduate

The event kicked off with a perfect example of both team and individual achievement. Our Improvement Leader Fellows celebrated the successful completion of the year-long programme that develops them as the next generation of leaders in health and care improvement. Despite many challenges currently facing health and care professionals, the cohort, which includes patient and public representatives, demonstrated an immense level of commitment to their structured study and self-initiated Quality Improvement project. In addition to receiving their graduation certificates on stage, the Fellows presented their project posters to an engaged and supportive room of delegates. If you want to see their project posters, visit their Fellowship profiles.

Improvement Leader Fellows with graduation certificates

A 'double-headed' keynote

Next up, we were treated first for a Collaborative Learning Event; a keynote speech delivered by two leading sector voices. Baroness Anne Marie Rafferty DBE and Dr Natalie Sanford, PhD, RN, who, in the spirit of the event theme, worked together as a team to deliver the keynote presentation titled: ‘Teamworking in the wild: How teams work in the ecosystem of the NHS.’ The dynamic and engaging presentation shed light on the latest research into team effectiveness, including some conducted by Natalie. First, the NHS was framed within the context of an ecosystem with many assets contributing to a positive public perception. The latest data was presented to give further insight into this complex and developing picture.

Next, delegates were treated to an insightful deep dive into team science and team research theory. Natalie and Anne Maire asked what makes a team, and why is teamwork so complex in healthcare? To conclude, insights and answers to these questions were drawn from the latest research on teamworking. The strengths of healthcare workers in delivering care and services in a complex and variable system were highlighted, with this fact not getting lost, not the British public, who consistently highly value their contributions. The key takeaways were that one size does not fit all healthcare teams, and traditional models can be ineffective in describing how they operate. Finally, there is a need to expand our knowledge of teams so we can support them better in their work and integrate this into team training and healthcare education.

Natalie said:

"It was wonderful to discuss the important topic of healthcare teamworking at the NIHR NWL ARC Collaborative Learning Event! The venue was absolutely beautiful and provided the perfect backdrop for inspired conversation. There were clinicians, researchers, PPI members, and many backgrounds represented, which led to a fruitful and stimulating discussion. Matching the ‘team-y’ theme of the day, it was a pleasure to deliver the keynote in collaboration with the ever-brilliant Baroness Anne Marie Rafferty. Thank you so much to all who took part and organised; I hope this is the beginning, not the end, of our conversations!”

RaffertySanford.Keynote15May.Final.pdf

View the presentation:

‘Teamworking in the wild: How teams work in the ecosystem of the NHS’

Professor Dame Baroness Anne Marie Rafferty, DBE Professor of Nursing Policy, King’s College London
Dr Natalie Sanford, PhD RN Lecturer of Interprofessional Science and Faculty Lead for Interprofessional Education, King’s College London

Knowledge Mobilisation takes centre stage

Our Collaborative Learning Events are known for changing the mode of delivery as the day progresses, the interactive Learning Lab gave an opportunity for attendees to engage ina kinesethic learning experience. Knowledge Mobilisation is a term that can mean many things to many people, but it is often a confusing topic when people try to put it into practice and apply it to their work.

ARC NWL Knowledge Mobilisation co-leads Prof. Rowan Myron, Professor for Healthcare Improvement and Dr Ben Holden, Consultant in Public Health, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, [Pictured Right] looked to remedy this with an interactive exercise that got people out of their seats seeking the relevant research to answer their question. Knowledge mobilisation is about bringing research knowledge to the people who need it most, and is about getting the right information to the right people at the right time. Throughout the activity and group discussions at tables, attendees considered the role Knowledge Mobilisation plays in forming and developing strong teams.

Breakout sessions with our research themes

Working with public partners- Notes from the field.pdf

Patient, Public, Community Engagement & Involvement with Multimorbidity & Mental Health

Working with public partners: notes from the field

Public partner involvement in research is not new, but their integration into research teams remains relatively underexplored. Over the past five years, the Multimorbidity and Mental Health theme has successfully embedded public partners in various projects, fostering meaningful collaboration. While this involvement has positively impacted researchers, public partners, and research outcomes, it has also presented challenges. This session examined key facilitators and barriers to integrating public partners into research teams and provided an opportunity to hear directly from public partners about their evolving roles.

Presenters: Jean Straus (Public Partner), Michelle Kay (Public Partner), Dr Stuart Hofer (Project Evaluation Manager) and Kabelo Murray (PPIE Theme)

Social Care ARC CLE May 2025_v2.pdf

Social Care with Child Population Health

Joining up health and social care for children and young people

This breakout session explored how teams across health and social care can work together to improve data access and use, to support the wellbeing of children and young people.

Lively discussions covered the current challenges in using data to support at-risk children and how better collaboration can make a difference. The presenters highlighted their work on gaps in data for impact and decision-making, along with plans to address them. Demonstrating how partnerships can lead to better outcomes. This included learning from places where better quality data and analysis have led to improvements for children and young people.

Presenters: Prof Fiona Verity (Theme Lead, Social Care), Sandeepa Arora (Research Assistant) and Prof Dougal Hargreaves (Theme Lead, Children & Young People)

SpringCLE25_DH & IE.pdf

Digital Health with Innovation & Evaluation

Investigating the causes and consequences of delays in elective procedures

This workshop shared results from the evaluation of the Federated Data Platform’s Inpatient Care Coordination Solution product at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust. The platform aims to enhance the scheduling and management of elective surgeries, ultimately reducing patient waiting times. The workshop encouraged insightful discussions about where delays in care occur, why they happen and how different individuals experience them. This research is currently in the early development stage, and the workshop provided an opportunity for collaborative reflection, ensuring the research project addresses real-world needs and experiences.

Presenters: Elena Lammila-Escalera (Research Assistant), Dr Geva Greenfield (Research Fellow in Public Health), Dr Grazia Antonacci (Deputy Lead for the Innovation and Evaluation Theme) and Dr Matthew Harris (Clinical Reader in Public Health Innovation)

I&I EHU CLE Workshop .pdf

Ethnicity and Health Unit with Information & Intelligence

Using data to identify and address health inequalities that impact on the diverse communities of Northwest London

This workshop presented findings on ethnicity and health from the WSIC Discover Database across Northwest London. Presenters explored insights into COVID-19 and flu vaccine uptake in pregnancy, hospitalisation rates for COVID-19 and flu, and the presence of polypharmacy. Additionally, they outlined possible factors contributing to these outcomes while considering opportunities to improve experiences, including diversity in research and empowering community research champions. At the end of this workshop, the researchers summarised findings in relation to health disparities affecting ethnic minority populations in NWL arising from ARC analyses of the WSIC data, what factors influence this and brainstorm strategies to overcome some of these challenges and barriers.

Presenters: Dr Thomas Woodcock (Theme Lead Innovation & Evaluation), Megan Russell (Project Officer) and Ganesh Sathyamoorthy (Co-Director, Ethnicity & Health Unit)

Perspectives from...

Our Collaboritive Learning Events always end with a reflective on-stage panel discussion led by the Collective Learning & Capacity Building Team Lead, Dr Fiona Moss. She was joined on stage by three leading voices that all brought with them a unique perspective on teamwork. They were one of our keynote presenters from earlier in the day Dr Natalie Sandford, Prof Rowan Myron, Academic Career Development Lead and Kabelo Murray, Patient and Public Involvement Expert. The panel fielded questions from the audience, and moderated by Fiona, they shared their valuable insight on what makes a team work well.

See you next time...

Our next Collaborative Learning Event will be held in November 2025. Keep an eye on our events page for more details.

Associasted Themes:

This event was devised and delivered by our Collaborative Learning & Capacity Building Theme, and it featured all of our Research Themes.

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