When does too late become perfect timing?

Late in 2005 a multi-million pound building project was nearing completion – the state-of-the-art Renal unit at Hammersmith Hospital, merging two existing wards from St Mary's and Hammersmith hospitals.

Staff needed support to manage the transition and the hospital decided to use Action Learning and Learning Sets to help staff tackle the issues of the merger.

Learning Sets are facilitated groups of 5 to 6 people who meet regularly to address important organisational and management issues in the workplace.

The plan was to create an internal bank of Action Learning facilitators to facilitate Learning Sets within the new facility. The objectives were to support staff getting to know new colleagues, to help them discuss how to manage the integration of practices, procedures and people; and to do all of this in an arena that supported staff development and learning.

On paper the plan looked flawless except for one thing - timing. The building was due to go live in two months and issues were already starting to arise. There wasn't enough time to train and develop the internal facilitators to a sufficient level of competency. The staff needed support there and then. Issues needed to be resolved.

So, at that time the new Renal facility wasn't able to take full advantage of Action Learning to support the transition. However Hammersmith's Leadership and Management Development Centre continued the initiative and expanded it by training a further dozen people to become internal Learning Set facilitators. These new facilitators were drawn from across the Trust, from assistant directors to nurses.

Eighteen months later the Renal unit was pioneering new ways of using Action Learning to support ward teams. This has had very positive results on the wards. Staff report that morale has improved, with improved staff co-operation and team work. Individuals' ability to problem solve and seek support has increased. More significantly the improved team working on the wards led to improved patient care.

Three years on, the Trust merged again. Sound familiar? This time they were ready. With a bigger bank of trained internal facilitators the Leadership and Management Development team have the capacity to support ward staff, teams and management with Action Learning sets – which they call Peer Coaching Groups. The Sets are helping staff deal with the complex and challenging issues that the merger has created.

Staff report that attending the Sets helps build confidence, gives them time to focus on the important issues rather than just the urgent ones, and hones their problem solving, listening and coaching skills. What started as an initiative that might have been too little and too late turned into a powerful and continuing part of the successful running of a complex organisation.