Teal, Gouda & Buurtzorg

Today, I am in Gouda, Holland.

Tomorrow I am talking at a Microsystems conference in the local Green-Heart hospital.

I don’t have much of an idea what it will be like, who will be there or even what I will talk about.

Sure, I have a PowerPoint ready; as to whether this is what the people will want to hear, I have no idea.

I am talking Person-Centred Care and the work we have done in Doncaster this past couple of years – in the hospital and the more recent Teal-inspired Wellbeing work with Helen and Greg.

The location of the conference in Holland is funny, as so much of the Teal-work has been inspired by what Jos de Blok and colleagues have done in relation to Buurtzorg – the self-managing, whole-person organisation delivering community nursing in Holland over the past nine years.

I have ended-up here as in March I met Renee, who is organising this conference at a meeting in Sweden.

I first heard about Buurtzorg on the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson MSc course I completed last year – the concept of people working in healthcare who were self-managing – that is, outside the hierarchical straightjacket that is NHS or any other Western healthcare model, was something to behold.

I didn’t really understand it at the time – these things usually take a few iterations to sink-in with me.

We are trying to set-up our Wellbeing teams in Preston and Doncaster using the same philosophy pervading Buurtzorg.

As to exactly what Buurtzorg is, how it works, how the people providing the care approach their patients, I hope to find-out tomorrow when I meet some of the team.

So, this interim blog, is a bit of a heads-up before tomorrow.

I know there are plans to translate the work into the UK – to see if we can achieve the same outcomes – improvement in quality, cost and safety achieved in Holland; it will be interesting to see how it unfolds – for all that Holland and the UK have many similarities, the society is a little different (besides the tulips & bicycles); sure, underneath it all we are people with common symptoms, feelings and emotions; let’s see.