#TeamTalk: Continuing to develop our Training and Events offering
Welcome to the latest update in our #TeamTalk series, where we put a spotlight on the teams that make up NOE CPC.
This month we’re focusing on our Training and Events team, who manage and facilitate our busy calendar of in-person and online events, and our training offer.
We spoke to Rob Pearce, our Head of Training and Events, about what events are in the diary, what he’s looking to develop in the future and what motivates him.
“June will be a busy month for the Training and Events team, not least because we have our next Members’ Forum on the 18th, which will be the first one I have been involved with, having joined NOE CPC earlier this year. I’ll be presenting my vision of the Training and Events team, and we have a packed programme for the people coming along. Hopefully it will be an informative, interactive day for people, and they can learn a bit more about what we do.
“The Members’ Forums happen once a quarter, with the face-to-face events happening biannually. For me, it’s the cornerstone of our events calendar, because it’s our touchpoint with the wider membership and an opportunity for us all to get together and shape the direction of what we’re doing and to learn from each other.
“It’s also a good opportunity to find out what members want from the Training and Events team. So, thinking about the other myriad of events that we have, understanding what is it that's valuable, what are we missing, maybe what can we change. And I think, going forward, that's really going to be key to shaping the strategy that I have for the team and more widely for the organisation.
Events programme
“We have a busy calendar of events and training throughout the year. This includes bespoke training – recently I’ve delivered one for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, and I’ve got one coming up for Leeds Community as well. This training focuses on people who are new to procurement and giving them an overview of what procurement’s like in the NHS, how it functions, the rules and regulations. As we know, the NHS is a large organisation and procurements are a driving force within it, so it's important people have the right mindset and the right skill set to do the job well. So that's a key offering that we have.
“We also do a lot of informative sessions, and one of our most popular is the legal seminars we run with the legal providers from our framework agreement. That’s something I'm keen to expand on. Traditionally, we've focused on procurement law, which is an important area, but there's a lot of things within the NHS where legal guidance is often sought, for example around human rights. We could answer a lot of those questions and increase people’s knowledge, but we need to drill down more deeply into the membership to find the right audience for those sorts of events.
Dynamic Change Networks
“There’s also a lot of work we can do with suppliers, both in terms of supplier education and learning from suppliers themselves, so that is something we are exploring. I’m working on something new called Dynamic Change Networks, where we will try to tackle a particular challenge or issue within our NHS community. So, for example, Private Finance Initiative hospitals – some of those are moving back into NHS ownership, which can be a very complex process, so if we can get groups working on those together, with help from our legal providers or other suppliers, we can help build that journey plan and help them through that process.
“So, it's about things that we can do, working collectively, collaborating, sharing the expertise of NOE CPC, using the frameworks that we've got in place to support what they can do.
“One of the challenges that we have faced internally is that we've always had that conduit through procurement. And I think we need to spread more deeply to find the end users, like estates and facilities managers, and pharmacy managers, for various projects, because very often they're the people who are day-to-day living the problem. And by working collaboratively with procurement and with us, we can actually do things to help them, but it's about raising awareness of what we're capable of doing if we actually work together.
On demand training
“I think the sky’s the limit with what we can do. There are massive opportunities. It’s not just about face-to-face events either, there’s lots of things we can do in terms of on demand training and events, such as podcasts or video interviews with key opinion leaders that people can digest at their leisure.
“I’ve been around the NHS, both as an employee and in the commercial sector, for more years than I care to remember, and what drives me ultimately is that it’s all about patients – making a difference to patients, and we’ve all got a role to play in that, whether you are a supplier or on the frontline; procurement or finance; whichever role you play, you’re part of the same journey and the same mission. It starts and ends with the patient, and we can all be a patient, so we want what’s best, and that’s what we must have in mind all the time.
“I've always been keen on helping people develop, and I suppose that's the other driver for me. I think people are an organisation’s best asset and if we help people develop their skill set and their knowledge, then we're rewarded by their input into the organisation.”
Rob previously worked in NHS Supplies, as a senior buyer and then a category manager for theatre products for 16 years. He worked in the private sector for Cook Medical, as commercial business manager and then commercial training manager for Europe, before moving to NOE CPC earlier this year.