Conflict resolution with teams in difficulty

Safe and effective patient care is heavily dependent on a well-functioning team. In today’s NHS many teams are in a state of flux. The arrival or departure of individual members, a change of leadership, or a long-standing feud between individuals can produce severe disruption to the team and the clinical service it provides. When problems are left to fester the risks to patients, colleagues and the organisation are increased.

What the service provides

We offer a specialist assessment, facilitation and team building service to help troubled teams to work more effectively together. We work with clinical teams as well as multi-disciplinary teams, and our focus is on difficulties relating to poor communication, lack of leadership, poor working relationships, chronic or acute conflict between members, resistance to change or protocols, and poor relationships with Trust management.

Who can benefit from our service?

Clinical teams in almost any area of healthcare, whose difficulties are starting to impact on their ability to deliver safe and effective patient care or on other staff and colleagues.

How your team will benefit?

• Increased understanding of the working style, preferences and personalities of other team members
• Open discussion of similarities and differences and what these mean for the team
• Agreement about shared goals, priorities and values
• Agreement about necessary roles and responsibilities
• Establishment of a "code" of behaviour

How the Trust will benefit

• High-quality, timely intervention that is tailored to each team
• A full written report that includes:

1. A clear understanding and "diagnosis" of the underlying causes of the team difficulties
2. An indication of the likelihood of successful resolution
3. Clear and practical recommendations for addressing the issues.

Why trust Edgecumbe?

We offer a unique combination of experts with backgrounds in occupational psychology, clinical governance and patient safety, mediation and conflict resolution, management, organisation and leadership development.

All our work is rigorous, evidence-based and often rooted in an initial psychological assessment of the personalities involved. However, we are also pragmatic – we recognise that the team has a job to do – good relationships are an essential part of this, but we also take account of the organisational context and how it affects the team. We can do this because many of our team have first hand experience of working in the NHS. This means that any solution that emerges will be practical and have the full involvement of senior management to help the changes to happen.

A typical process

• Guidance on how to engage all participants
• Diagnostic interviews with individual team members (where appropriate involving psychometric feedback)
• Interim reports to the team and the Trust with recommendations
• Facilitated team meeting to feedback themes, explore implications, agree values, vision and goals, and establish helping and hindering factors to success
• Drawing up of actions to include a code of behaviour to support future ways of working
• Follow-up meetings as appropriate to keep the team on track and supported