3. Making the case to staff

For the project to be successful, you need to effectively promote the idea to staff at a number of levels. It is essential to get senior staff involved, including a budget-holder, who will need to lead from the top and open doors for you to work with staff teams. Talk to them about organisational aspirations around patient involvement, patient experience and multidisciplinary working, as this project will deliver across these agendas. Work with the senior leaders to identify the areas of focus. Try to pick an area in which staff members already recognise that change is needed, but that is not in such disarray that the challenges will be impossible to overcome. (For more guidance on how to approach this, see example presentation to senior staff)

Approach the staff within the service by talking to individuals to find out what motivates them, remembering that a team is not always a cohesive unit. Focus on 'what's in it for them'. If they see the project as threatening or time-consuming, this is the time to tackle these issues head on. They may worry about being criticised or exposed, or feel that patient demands could be unrealistic. Explain to staff that this positive approach can reveal a surprising level of commonality between staff and patients. Tap into their aspirations, their desire to be patient-centred and their need for inspiration.

Key points

• You may wish to find a catchy project title and publicise your project by displaying posters, sending out invitations, giving presentations and meeting individuals, as well as identifying influential team players who will enthuse their colleagues.
• Use the sample presentations in the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement's EBD Approach material along with information and case studies from other projects, to show how similar services have benefited from the approach.
• Emphasise that experience-based co-design (EBCD) is a cutting-edge approach to addressing the quality agenda that will enhance both individual professionalism and departmental reputation.
• Demonstrate that EBCD is an innovative and cost-effective approach and generates patient stories that can be used extensively in service improvement, training and external communications.
• Explain that because this approach is qualitative, not quantitative, it provides rich insights into the experience of patients. By filming the stories of people's experiences, and then bringing staff and patients together to prioritise areas for improvement and define key actions, it becomes extremely focused and leads to clearly demonstrable results. There is a body of evidence to prove the effectiveness of the approach (see our evidence for experience-based co-design).
• Keep objectives broad, such as 'to improve the quality and experience of services', as the specific focus will arise only during the course of the project.
• Make it clear that although this is a positive experience, teams must be prepared to accept the challenge of constructive criticism and rethink existing ways of working.
• EBCD does not have to be a stand-alone project: in fact, it is better if it is integrated with other work within the organisation – for example, as part of a wider strategy of quality improvement or patient involvement
• Allow people to choose whether or not to join up. If individuals are forced to take part, they will not have the enthusiasm you need for the project to work. Not everybody involved in the service has to take part, but as some of the areas for change may relate to areas for which senior managers are responsible, it is extremely valuable to have them on board.

Read the next section

4. Developing your project plan