Reimagining paediatric palliative care with digital

Helen and Douglas House were the UK’s first children’s hospice and are still leading the way in paediatric palliative care today.  They help terminally ill children live life to the full and are a place where families can make the most of their time together and create happy memories during their children’s short lives.

The brief

Helen and Douglas’ House’s services are exceptional; the clinical, medical and social care they provide to children and their families is exemplary. They put the children at the heart of what they do and their focus does not waver. The team have always been ahead of the curve with palliative paediatric care yet they knew that they were not engaging with digital well enough to meet the needs of their younger families and children.  

They needed to embrace digital and all it had to offer. The brief was to understand where they were on their digital journey, support in designing a digital future and plan a new strategy of how to get there. All whilst ensuring that face to face personal services remain front and centre.  

The solution

The commitment was great in the senior team and we were able to conduct a Digital audit with over 30 staff within the organisation, across all disciplines, from senior staff, clinical, medical and operational staff. A highly diverse organisation with medical, finance, shop and fundraising staff to name a few, all with differing capabilities, needs and aspirations.  

To gain greater insight we designed and delivered a bespoke digital skills audit based on their needs. This allowed HDH to understand the diversity of their staffs’ capability and plan for digital development in specific areas. Reviewing 1:1 interviews, technology audits and analysis of their organisation enabled us to map them on our Digital Maturity Model.    

Through workshops with sector specialists, across identified priority areas, we established their ambition state on the maturity model and identified strategic themes and guiding principles to deliver their digital strategy.  

We developed a comprehensive strategy and a detailed roadmap of key activity to reflect their ambitions and provide a digital response to their organisational strategy.  We are helping them with delivery, including setting up governance structures, training, hiring senior tech staff, and planning processes and systems.  

The outcome

A united leadership and trustee team focussed on digital transformation as a way to advance their offer. Organisation-wide engagement in exploring digital.