impact through better thinking
Helping healthcare organisations turn national ambition into local action
Measurable Improvement, Behaviour Change and Cross-Boundary Working
BETTER THINKING. BETTER ACTIONS. BETTER RESULTS.
Helping healthcare organisations turn national ambition into local action
From improving quality and workforce productivity to reducing costs, strengthening improvement capability and unlocking innovation, the results below show what can be achieved when people at every level are equipped to think differently, solve problems and turn priorities into measurable change.
A significant workforce challenge
Unlocking Nursing Potential
Ineffective e-rostering had contributed to high reliance on agency nursing — increasing cost, reducing workforce stability and affecting team engagement and culture.
90 nursing leaders, from Band 5 to Chief Nurse level, took ownership of focused 30, 60 and 90-day improvement challenges, using solution-focused thinking and practical problem solving to address live workforce issues.
Within 90 days:
- £758,000 in agency costs saved
- A visible shift in leadership ownership and problem solving within 30 days
- Key clinical indicators moved from red to green
Watch Unlocking Nursing Potential to see what changed, and how quickly leaders were able to turn thinking into measurable workforce, financial and clinical impact
Watch Thinking Differently to see how structured innovation helped turn a significant financial challenge into a wider pipeline of opportunity.
Developing internal capability
Thinking Differently
One NHS Trust faced the challenge of identifying £9.9 million in annual cost savings.
Rather than relying on conventional cost reduction, an internal ThinkOn® Master Coach brought the right people together and used structured innovation and possibility thinking to explore where greater value and efficiency could be found.
The results exceeded the original target:
- Hundreds of possibilities generated
- £11.6 million in savings realised
- More than 20 additional opportunities identified for future years
The power of questions
300 Nurses. 90 Minutes. Better Conversations.
How do you help hundreds of nurses develop and immediately apply effective coaching skills in just 90 minutes?
At their annual nursing conference, 300 nurses experienced a practical coaching approach designed to improve the quality of everyday conversations.
Led by the Director of Nursing, the session demonstrated how asking the right question, at the right time, to the right person can unlock better thinking, stronger ownership and more purposeful action.
Watch the video to see how leadership capability was developed at scale — in just 90 minutes.
Watch the video to see how building internal capability helped make improvement part of everyday leadership and conversation.
A solution Focused Approach
Changing Culture One Conversation at a Time
Culture is shaped through everyday conversations — in meetings, 1:1s, problem solving and the decisions people make together.
One NHS Trust developed 40 internal ThinkOn® Master Coaches to build its own capability to improve those conversations, challenge unproductive meetings and strengthen continuous improvement across the organisation.
Using a structured 12-point implementation approach, this led to:
- More purposeful and productive meetings and conversations
- Stronger ownership of improvement
- Practical problem-solving capability shared across teams
- Internal capability to sustain and spread new ways of working
Achieving the impossible
Securing £1.5 Million in Funding
Innovation rarely comes from asking the same people the same questions in the same way.
One NHS Trust brought together the right people, carefully crafted the questions and used structured possibility thinking to explore a significant organisational challenge from different perspectives.
The process opened up hundreds of possibilities, creating stronger ideas, wider involvement and new opportunities that would not have emerged through conventional discussion alone.
This contributed to:
- £1.5 million in funding secured
- Hundreds of possibilities generated
- Greater involvement from people closest to the challenge
- New opportunities developed into practical proposals
Watch the video to see how better questions, broader involvement and structured innovation helped unlock £1.5 million in funding.
