Over the past two years, COVID-19 has rightly dominated our time. I am now so looking forward to concentrating on our professional quality and experience agenda. Among several areas that I am focusing on is improving patient experience through effective nursing leadership.
One of the improvements to patient experience that I would like to embed is one that I have written about previously. Led by Dr Michael McCabe (2022), #CallMe is enabling patients at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust to have a simple way of indicating their preferred name to staff, following the rollout of a new section on patients' wristbands and labels. This benefits patients with dementia, those in recovery areas, and patients who prefer to use a name other than their given name. The feedback has been powerful.
My question is how best to lead this in my own organisation? As Mike McCabe is a friend of mine, we had a Zoom call with one of my nursing digital colleagues along with the fabulous Professor Brian Dolan, who spearheaded the movement ‘End PJ paralysis’. Brian's advice was to review the key thinking on how to create a social movement.
I re-read one of my go-to texts (Bibby et al, 2009) regarding social movement, a guide that:
‘… aims to provide knowledge and demonstrate how “social movements” approaches can be used to deliver improvement at previously unseen levels of depth and scale.’
Brian also signposted us to Henry Timms, whose TED Talk (2019) is a must watch for all nurse leaders. Timms considers that our world is defined by the battle and balance of two forces: old power and new power. Timms states that old power works like a currency, it is helped by few and, once gained, is jealously guarded. He describes it as top down, leader driven and inaccessible. New power, however, is described as operating ‘like a current’. It is made by many, it is open, participatory and peer driven. Like water or electricity, it's more forceful when it surges. The goal with new power is not to hoard it but to channel it.
In his TED Talk, Timms (2019) describes four steps to starting, growing, and flourishing a movement, using relatable examples of commercial brands such as Airbnb.
Find your ‘connected connectors’
‘For any new power movement, identifying and cultivating the right connected connectors is often the difference between take off and fizzle.’
Our ‘connected connectors’ in this instance are patients, families and NHS staff, in addition to a range of senior colleagues such as at NHS England/Improvement in both the digital, improvement and clinical space. In addition, international colleagues have expressed an interest, so our connections could be worldwide.
Building a new power brand
‘In a world awash with competing opportunities, achieving frictionlessness has become necessary for anyone trying to build a crowd.’
When discussing this with Brian, he advised us to build on #CallMe as something that is actionable—‘a thing’ that connects people. We are therefore in the process of commissioning a short film and some more visual tools for staff to use, reflecting how ‘End PJ paralysis’ enabled staff to consider its application in their settings. My favourite was in Scotland where posters used the phrase ‘Donald where's your troosers?’ to encourage patients to get up and get dressed.
Lower the barrier, flatten the path
‘The most effective crowdbuilders will be those able to move people up the participation scale and sustain and nourish a community over the longer term.’
Timms explains that, when you're trying to build a movement, you get people in the door via simple, low-barrier asks. Once you have recruited these new participants, the job is to keep them engaged and to move them up the scale, toward higher barrier behaviours such as adapting or remixing the content of others, crowdfunding a project, creating and uploading their own unique content or, at the top of the scale, by helping to shape the wider community.
Move people up the participation scale
Timms' (2019) visual participation scale recognises that new power gains its force from people's growing capacity and desire to go far beyond the passive consumption of ideas and goods. It takes individuals from consuming to co-owning. Brian added that no permission is needed to embrace the concept. So, in terms of next steps, let's spread the #CallMe word, let's find out what this means to our ‘connectors’ locally and let's start a movement!