Getting used to full-time working life!

13th-17th July 2015

After completing my first week at the Eastern Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group (ECCCG), my second week has come around so quickly! I feel much more settled in this week and part of the team. I am also starting to get more familiar with the complexity of the way the CCG works and the vast amount of terminology and acronyms! As part of the Community Based Co-ordinated Care (CBCC) workshop I attended last week, I was asked after the event to collate all of the feedback from the individual workshop stations into documents that captured the participant’s views. This was a very interesting task as it showed me different sides to an event; both attending the event as a staff member at the CCG and also reviewing feedback after the event on the topics covered and also how well the event was ran.

Also this week I had my first 1:1 meeting with my line manager Jane Stairmand. This meeting is going to be held so that it allows us to go through any areas of concerns we have. In this week’s meeting we discussed the areas of work I am likely to be involved in during my time at the CCG and also Jane outlined mandatory training activities and other training opportunities that I can take advantage of during the year that will enhance my skill set. These meetings will be held weekly for my first few months at the CCG whilst I settle in.

Another activity I was involved with this week was the monthly staff briefing where all the staff from the CCG are invited to attend. This month there was a presentation from Anna Whitehead who is the Cheshire East JSNA lead to inform us about the development of Cheshire East’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment(JSNA). The aim of this programme is to improve the strategic planning, commissioning of both the Local Authority and the NHS to improve health and wellbeing and help tackle inequalities to deliver the best service for the Eastern Cheshire population. Also in each staff briefing Jerry Hawker, who is the Chief Officer at the CCG, up-dates all of the staff on the important events and projects happening at the CCG. I found this very helpful; as I am a new member of staff it was very informative and provided me with a great insight as to the current projects the CCG is involved with.

As well as these tasks I have completed my mandatory training for new NHS members of staff and also read through documents to help with my understanding of the structure of the ECCCG.