How will you plan for a successful transition?

There are two key aspects in planning the transition:

1. Make sure the steps involved are feasible and practical.
2. Make sure you have the capacity to make the required changes.

Learn from others.Find another practice that has already implemented the change you want to introduce. Pay careful attention to what they found to be the essential first steps.

Research.Could a member of staff go and see how the solution works elsewhere (shadowing)?

Set up a pilot. Could you pilot the approach in a small way to assess what’s involved, spot teething problems and calculate what’s required to make it work in your practice? Do you need to run two systems in parallel for a defined period?

Do you have capacity? Do you have the necessary resources, skills, training, equipment, infrastructure, time and energy to make change happen? What do you need to do to make sure these are in place? Can you cope right now with yet more change or should you prioritise and reconsider the timing of certain changes?

Are you ready? Do you have the confidence and belief that you can take the actions required to get the change going and make it work? If not, what else do you need to think about or do?

And finally

There will be a risk, once you have introduced the change that things slip back to old habits (think about the parallels of sticking to a diet or giving up smoking).

So you need to think in advance about what might slip back to the old way and why and how you can reinforce and support the new way. If it’s an option, can you remove the old way completely?

Can you make it easier to do things the new way? At the very least, you should build in review points so that any complaints or difficulties can be channelled and addressed.

Additional resources

Improvement Leaders Guides – order or download at www.institute.nhs.uk/improvementleadersguides

Managing Change in the NHS and related publications – order or download at http://www.sdo.nihr.ac.uk/managingchange.html

Author: Jo Hollands of Navigator Research & Consultancy Ltd has extensive experience of facilitating NHS groups developing ideas and plans for service improvements, and the associated changes.