Shadow Running
In April 2007 the Minister approved the outline business case. He concluded the development of the conceptual new model for community equipment is seen as broadly the right solution by the majority of stakeholders and has been developed to a sufficient level of robustness to demonstrate that further investment in resources is worthwhile
The TCEWS programme developed an approach to work with partners in the North West to understand how the model design could be turned into reality. The North West was selected as an approach had been made from some organisations that had to make decisions about their local services before April 2008 and wanted to work more closely with the TCEWS programme and, outside the south east of England, it has the largest number of community equipment services.
Methodology for Shadow Running
The guiding principles behind shadow running were to design and test an operating model for community equipment. It was understood that the main focus would be on testing the move to retail provision for aids to daily living. The national loan equipment home delivery service was not going to be available during the period of shadow running, however one of the partner organisations was prepared to develop a retail solution for beds, hoists etc to enable them to transfer from provider arrangements that were terminating at the end of March 2008.
It was also understood that none of the organisations would achieve 100% switch to the new ways of working. The process was designed to trial new ways of working alongside the existing process. The model was designed thus:
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Lead Partners would draft all ‘to-be' processes, transition and measurement materials and start to roll out the new ways of working. Lead Partners developed an initial roll-out plan to cover all aspects of their user base and the different teams able to assess and issue community equipment.
Micro sites (3-5) would be invited to regular working sessions to provide in-depth feedback and improvements to be incorporated into the initial design. Between 4 - 6 weeks form this feedback micro sites would start to run their own shadow run programme.
Macro sites (5 - 15) would be provided with the ‘version 1' material and, through the use of web conference calls, be walked through the materials so they too could provide feedback and improvements to be incorporated into the final design.
All sites testing the operating model were required to provide measurement information on a weekly basis so that the impact of the changed ways of working could be clearly understood.
Lead Partners
We are very grateful to our lead partners, Cheshire County Council and their health partners, and Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council and their health partners, for their commitment and support in designing and delivering the new operating model for community equipment.
Our lead partners have been fundamental in shaping the future ways of working. They demonstrated real drive and ambition to make the new ways of working succeed and have been prepared to take on the national profile to share their experiences to other LAs and health partners.
Both lead partners made local decisions to change their service and implement the new model.
Micro Sites
Other councils, also based in the North West, followed Cheshire and Oldham as ‘micro-sites' councils, trialling the new model, using and testing material developed by these lead partners. In order to validate and build on the lead partners' output, the micro sites comprised a broad range of authorities. These micro-sites were selected to provide a range of governance set-ups, sizing, customer bases and locations.
We are very grateful to the following councils and their health partners who elected to act as ‘micro-sites and participated fully in shadow running: Manchester, Wirral, Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen are proceeding through the shadow running process now.
We are also grateful that St Helens, Knowsley and Halton councils participated in testing the material developed by the lead partners and shadow running microsites.
Macro Sites
This testing approach also included input from a number of ‘macro-sites', also based in the North West. These macro sites helped to develop specific components of the retail model and review the design developed for lead sites as verified and amended by the micro sites. They had a much lighter involvement in the design of the central model.
We are very grateful to the macro sites councils: Rochdale, Salford and Trafford for their valuable input into the development of transition materials, designed to support change implementation which we have called ‘Pulses'.
Developing the Model for Shadow Running
Both lead partners created a leadership and governance structure for the project and identified a Project Manager and Working Group Leads to develop the detailed ways of working through regular workshops. They were supported by a small team from TCEWS.
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Evaluation of shadow running
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Designing the new model for wider implementation
We identified 10 steps to achieve the detailed implementation design from what we learned working with our lead partners, micro and macro site colleagues during shadow running:
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Step 1 - Initiate Project and start up readiness assessment
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It was important to understand the ideal profile for the Project Manager
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Step 2 - Develop change material and launch project
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Step 3 - Develop and initiate transition plans
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Step 4 - Implement back office operating model
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Step 5 - Tailor ‘To be' processes
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Step 6 - Engage local retailers
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Step 7 - User engagement
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Step 8 - Assessing readiness to change and measuring change
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Step 9 - Go Live
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Step 10 - Transition and close project
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