The ICE team is getting excited about attending this year’s Health+Care conference – attending sessions, meeting and talking to new and existing contacts in and around the show and on our stand F91.

Ahead of the show, here are a few of their reflections about the sessions and experiences they are looking forward to and why. What are you looking forward to? We’d love to hear!

Jane Cryer

Job at ICE: Director (Transformation and OD)

I’m really looking forward to hearing about:

• Person-centred care because it’s want we all want, we just need to learn how to work together to make it happen

• Systems leadership - integrating care  because it is THE challenge as health and care leaders we have to address

• Vanguards and learning from what works in the new models of care, so we can spread and share to accelerate transformation

• Elephant in the room because we all know it’s there, so what are we going to do? Talking and sharing would be a good start

Richard Forshaw-Smith

Job at ICE: Director (Business Development, Marketing & Engagement)

I’m looking forward to:

• Mid Nottinghamshire Better Together Vanguard from 11:15 - 11:50 in the Local Systems Transformation stream because I'm interested in examples of best practice in system transformation

• How the internet of things is revolutionising health and care from 10:30 - 11:00 in the Technology First stream which includes:

• Introduction to IoTUK
• Opportunities & challenges facing carers
• Innovation in the care sector
• Case studies & research

I'm interested in seeing if there is any genuinely disruptive tech that's adding value.

Carly Farley

Job at ICE: Behavioural Brand Manager

I’m most looking forward to:

Reinvestment opportunities to enhance patient care. We know the NHS has changed, and will continue to change, particularly over the next five years, so the role of pharmas in this is always an interesting view point.

Enabling change for a sustainable NHS - the role of biosimilar medicines. With the NHS being a unique healthcare system, biosimilars offer increased patient and clinician choice, and enhanced value - I’m intrigued by what other perks biosimilars can bring, and how this will affect the market, and the NHS as a whole.

Stuart Jackson - 'Stu'

Job at ICE: People, behaviours and leadership

I’m looking forward to http://www.healthpluscare.co.uk/future-of-public-health  

I’m really excited to meet like-minded people and to find out more about what matters to you, particularly things like why you do the job you do and what excites you about it? What inspires you? And quirky things like your favourite music or flavour of ice cream. You can learn a lot from the little things :-)

Heidi King

Job at ICE: Director (Marketing and Engagement)

I’m really looking forward to conversations, sharing insights and stories around improving health and wellness outcomes and resilience for our communities. Together, we can learn what matters from each other and change lives for the better.

http://www.healthpluscare.co.uk/future-of-public-health    

Amanda Madden

Job at ICE: People, positive behaviours and living well

I am really looking forward to Health+Care and exploring the latest thinking on behavioural person-centred approaches. I really want to share and explore, especially with pharma companies, about how such approaches can support increased patient outcomes, whilst delivering on the clinical markers such as increased adherence, better condition management and improved health and wellness.

Simon Platt

Job at ICE: Senior Change Practitioner

I'm particularly looking forward to the session on the West Wakefield MCP Vanguard as I have heard they are making good progress with their model and want to see if there are easy tips others could look to adopt and adapt.

Equally, as social prescribing is something I am immensely passionate about, I will be ensuring I attend the Support for Commissioners: How can we embed Social Prescribing across the NHS. Having seen the likes of Halton Wellbeing Enterprise CIC and the VARotherham services making a positive impact on their local citizens and the health and care landscape, I am convinced there is more to be done to encourage further uptake.

Stephen Theobald

Job at ICE: Digital and Behaviour Change Specialist

I am most looking forward to the session around Technology enabled care: the national vision http://www.healthpluscare.co.uk/technology-first-4t4l

I think there are endless opportunities for technology to support commissioners across health and social care and we need to start better utilising the technology at our finger tips. On a different note, and more importantly, I am looking forward to meeting all of the wonderful people throughout the show, finding out what interests and excites them.

Come and meet us on our stand with a gardening theme and find out about nurturing integrated care. We’d love to chat about your conference highlights and all things Health+Care.

We’re on stand F91 – see you there!

I’ve developed a bit of an obsession around creativity - what it is and how we can practice it.

For me, creativity is the start of exercising choice; it’s helping people to change, and also how we create new models and concepts. Experiences and choice all start with ideas that add value.

Of course, there is evidence to suggest we know where creativity lives (in the right side of the brain, neighbouring with impulsivity and emotion), but how can we fuel it?

Inspiration or Insanity

I have looked into the habits of some of history’s most creative minds in the hope that I might learn some tricks to expand my own creative productivity.

Some things I found have been rather weird and personal!

Steve Jobs - routinely sat on toilets, dangling his bare feet while he came up with new ideas.

Yoshiro Nakamatsu (inventor of the floppy disc) – dived deep underwater until his brain was deprived of oxygen. He would then write his ideas on an underwater sticky pad.

Ben Franklin - started his days with an air bath - half an hour each day in his birthday suit in front of an open window - to read, write, and get his mental juices flowing.

T.S. Eliot - wore green-tinted face powder and lipstick.

Friedrich von Schiller - sought inspiration from the scent of rotting apples.

Yeah, I get it - do weird things to be creative! The good news is that you don’t have to. Exploring how these great thinkers achieved their ‘creative Zen’ has led me to insights of four habits that really do help me to be creative and what’s more, they are based on biology as well as psychology.

It should be noted that we could list lots of other tools, tricks and experiences that do help. My four below are what I get most impact from, and are simple to build into everyday life.

Your Time

Make time and space to really relax on your own. We know collaboration, open offices, and being connected are really important fuel to feed our creativity, yet our brains need time and space to join up the dots in their own amazing way.

The benefits of relaxation and being on our own are powerful in many aspects, including:

• The opportunity to find your flow
• Daydreaming
• Thinking about the meaning of things
• Resetting your level of focus

Tips:

For optimal creativity, set aside time for solitude:

• Take a walk in nature - find an environment where distraction is minimal but the atmosphere is inspiring
• Set time aside for a warm bath or extended shower
• Dark rooms or spaces can also stimulate the imagination (no horror films beforehand, though!)
• Write things down as they come to you, keep a 'scrapbook' - digital or physical

Thinking Differently

The most original contributions in any field don’t result from efforts to please the crowd. Research by neuroscientist Gregory Berns suggests that iconoclasts (or at least natural disruptors) “bombard the brain with new experiences” which scramble existing categories, links and assumptions and forge new connections.

One study of more than 3,000 entrepreneurs and business executives found that innovators spend 50 percent more time trying to think differently -  and these intentional efforts sparked new ideas and associations. Think of an idea as this: a combination of old elements organised or joined together in new ways.

Tips:

• Take a different route to work
• Spend time in new places
• Listen to a different type of music
• Try new food

The more intentionally “do it on purpose” we are, the better.

Meditation

Research by Italian cognitive scientist Lorenza Colzato and her colleagues shows one type of meditation is particularly effective for creative thinking. It’s called “open-monitoring” meditation – in which you are receptive to your thoughts and emotions without focusing intensely on, say, your breath.

Tips:

• You can record open-monitoring meditation with a voice recorder or phone app. This allows you to ramble audibly about ideas whilst capturing all the thoughts - without breaking your stride
• By contrast, the more traditional focused-attention meditation was better for “convergent thinking” (coming up with a single solution to a problem). So depending on where you are in the creative process, you can select different forms of meditation appropriately.

Tips:

• Try simple meditation for 10-20 minutes a day. A great app for this is 'Omvana'.

Embrace Challenge

The amazing creatives from our history were not tortured souls looking to punish themselves. They were believers, passionate to explore what mattered to them. They were adept at finding meaning and learning from their setbacks.

Some of the greatest creators had what the contemporary world may see as a disadvantage - a disability, mental illness, or significant loss - “a big change.” They channeled this energy from loss into their passion and what mattered to them.

Tips:

• To help with your own creative growth, try this as a new habit, view a setback as an opportunity to reflect and grow: 'What can I learn from this and how can I take that learning forward?' - the '5 whys' root cause analysis method could assist you here
• Share your creativity and listen well to what people share back

Thank you for reading.

Best wishes,

Stuart

For more information email stuart.jackson@icecreates.com or call 0151 647 4700

NHS Health Check Case Study

How to increase NHS Health Check uptake in your area 

Read more... NHS Health Check Case Study

To take advantage of our successful model and the support we can provide please see our case study or contact Graeme Morgan on 0797 357 8337 or at graeme.morgan@icecreates.com

Those of you who are in regular contact with me will know that I have recently taken an exciting opportunity to explore a new chapter in my career. The plot remains similar as I continue with the passion I have for Health & Care, whilst growing the fascination for Organisational Development  - combining creative initiatives and innovation wherever possible.

I now find myself two months in and, at ICE Creates, my early experiences have been incredible! Allow me to shed some light on being the new guy.

First off is the fact I get to see this almost every day!

With my HQ situated on the banks of the River Mersey, I only have to lift my head above my monitor to take in the refreshing sights.

When you start at ICE, if the scenery doesn’t hit you first, the energy in the office definitely will. Like

a surge in a crowd at a rock gig, it will literally lift you and take you with it.

The team have been so welcoming and I have found it humbling to be accepted at pace into the family.

I use the word ‘family’ to its full, too. ICE has an impressive portfolio (Organisational/Leadership Development, Graphic Design, Digital, Marketing, Communications and Insights).

It can dip into craft valuable solutions, yet it does so within a relatively small, tight-knit group of people who take great pride in supporting each other.

Talking of support and family, what do you make of this year’s Christmas adverts? Good old JL set the ball in motion with ‘the man on the moon’, shortly followed by ‘Mog’ and all the others. What certainly seems to be a trend this time around is that most are trying to support a charity of some description. Now that’s very decent of them, but in my opinion, they have been slightly too whimsical in their approach to something that is in fact very real! Fortunately, many of my colleagues felt the same and we wanted to follow our thoughts up with actions.

With a relatively miniscule budget (certainly not £7million) and two mobile phones, we set about trying to show what people can achieve with small acts of kindness, closer to home, where we live. The outcome of this can be seen in the video below:

We loved every minute of making that short video, and hope others will feel compelled to complete similar acts of kindness? One friend told me she had taken a box of non-perishable food to her local sheltered home and they were delighted by such a simple yet thoughtful gesture.

So what of my first two months then? One thing is for sure thus far at ICE, no two days are the same. Opportunity is permanent and inspiration has no boundaries. I can’t sum up the excitement I have right now, but hopefully this blog is a clue. Perhaps I’ll touch base with you all in another two months, perhaps we could talk sooner…

Call me on 0151 647 4700 or Email simon.platt@icecreates.com

Health Smart Programme Case Study

#ICEGraphicScribes#FLOWOPOLY#PFHACK#HACKATHON Scribe @helenbevan@ianjaxon@AHSN_YandH

Amazing feedback from local school children what helps to keep us happy and well? @healthy_wirral@ice_creates

BRILLIANT @healthy_wirral :) #Wirral#HealthyWirral#HWExpo TODAY @FloralPavilion Share Your #Wellbeing Insights

#Wirral#HealthyWirral#HWExpo@stuartice Showing His Passion for @healthy_wirral at the BRILLIANT @FloralPavilion

#Wirral#HealthyWirral#HWExpo@healthy_wirral@stuartice & #ICEGraphicScribes at the FANTASTIC @FloralPavilion :)

Engage with The @ice_creates Team on Twitter :) #LiveWell & #MakeBetterHappen :)

Puffell.com Case Study

During this ‘Self Care Week’ there has been a lot of engagement on social media. I’ve liked many posts and shared blogs on wellbeing behaviours. Here is our creative motion graphic scribe video to show health insights in an engaging way, which tells the story of the large English town of Rochdale where we supported a ‘Whole Place’ approach to wellbeing and building self care and self management.

On the theme on social media and wellbeing I have been encouraging people to ‘Engage on Puffell’ - the innovative new digital wellness ecosystem at the forefront of supporting people to live well.

Self Care for Life to Live Well & Make Better Happen

To ‘Engage on Puffell’ and for more information on a ‘Whole Place’ approach to wellbeing and building self care and self management contact michael.jones@icecreates.com