Health and Care Simulation Community of Practice

Activities of the HaC S CoP:

We have a range of activities, shaped by the community for the community.

• Mid-Month Catch Ups – We meet virtually via Teams every month, on the afternoon of the third Thursday of the month.
• Advice clinics – These are private bookable sessions for support to Midlands participants to help progress their new or ongoing projects. These provide mentoring time from Douglas McKelvie, a leading expert on System Dynamics in health and care, Stacey Croft, Simulation Analytics Manager and Sally Thompson, Senior Healthcare Analyst specialising in System Dynamics.
• ‘Fish bowl’ sessions – These are bookable sessions for support to those in the HaC S CoP (including outside the Midlands) to help progress their new or ongoing projects. These sessions are open to the wider group to attend, so that they can learn from the advice and examples, and help to prevent duplication of work as many may also tackle similar problems. These provide mentoring time from Douglas McKelvie, Stacey Croft or Sally Thompson.
• Training, networking and shared learning events – We have some online learning sessions, and we recently had an in-person event in Birmingham on March 7^th
• Developing local projects for wider use –  As part of our support to the CoP we will look for projects that may be suitable for development to use beyond their original organisation(s) and look to share these for wider use.
• Encouraging national spread and support – We very much support all those who want to further their experience and network with peers outside the Midlands.  All those with an interest are welcome to attend and present at the monthly catch-ups, fish bowls and learning events.

We also recently completed a 6 month Midlands System Dynamics Applied Learning Programme for analysts to create analytical capability, within ICSs and local health and care systems, to use SD to address problems in their systems. There was a whole range of problems addressed including mental health bed capacity, future demand and supply of care homes places, colorectal 2 week cancer waits, dermatology outpatients, stroke pathway, end of life care, hypertension and Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT). A video presentation on this training is in the ‘useful resources’ section below.

In the example, each month a number of people are referred to a service. They join a ‘waiting list’ (a stock) until there is spare capacity within the service. This is determined by considering the capacity, the number of service users and the number of people finishing the service. Once there are spare places they flow from the ‘waiting list’ stock into the ‘service users’ stock. People receive the service for a certain average duration after which their service ends and they flow out of the ‘service users’ stock. If the number of people joining the waiting list each month is higher than the number of people ending the service, then the waiting list will rise.

However, simulation modelling is not just an analytical method, it requires wider skills such as facilitation and a collaborative approach. Simulation is a learning tool, it improves the collective understanding of how a particular system ‘works’ through engagement, learning, feedback and therefore iteration between stakeholders and the model is a vital process.

Those seeking insight learn not only from the final model but by the process of building models through a participative approach. Mixed groups of stakeholders collaborate to explore mapping the main aspects of the system, how the system works, its main constraints and dynamic impacts, current challenges, future policy and possibilities.