10 Apr 2023

  • Public Services

From ‘Digital Government’ to ‘Public Services’, why we’ve changed our team name

The Public Services team

We’ve changed the name of our ‘Digital Government’ pod to ‘Public Services’, to more accurately reflect the work that we are doing and the vision we have.

As a company, we are constantly changing and evolving. It’s more than just staying agile. It’s also about not relying solely on our 20-year legacy of providing excellent strategic design services.

Most recently, we’ve changed the name of our ‘Digital Government’ pod to ‘Public Services’, to more accurately reflect the work that we are doing and the vision we have.

And this change (as change should) started internally and as part of a wider sense check of the team and our culture. In order to do the best work we can for our clients, I felt it was necessary to have strong grounding in our place within cxpartners and the market we work in.

But what are ‘pods’?

We believe our consultants deliver the best results for our clients and their users because we’ve broken our client-facing teams into mini-business units, otherwise known as ‘pods’.  You can read more about the rationale behind why in our blog Growing big, thinking small.

A photo of 11 people stood in a group smiling at the camera
The Public Services team

Shifting from ‘Digital Government’ to ‘Public Services’

There were a few reasons for our name change:

  • Firstly, the team has evolved in the last few years – we’ve brought new people in from different backgrounds and with different personal and professional interests and motivations. And it’s important that we feel that our culture and identity is recognisable both within cxpartners and within the sector. You can read more about some of our team members in our employee spotlights. Check out our blogs from Katherine Oliver and Teresa O’Malley (with more to come soon).
  • Next, quite simply the work we are doing is not strictly “digital”. Digital can be the end result or solution to the problems we’re trying to solve. But we don’t start with the solution, we start with the questions. We start with the problem itself so that we can keep an open mind to how we might create the best service for the user. You can see this in our work with DHSC and the NHS.
  • Finally, the term “government” may imply that we only work with central government and local authorities, but in reality, we work across the entire public sector. This includes Health, Defence, Regulatory bodies, and Industry-funded organisations. For example, we recently worked with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and their customers – the global seafaring community.

We deliver good services to the public sector… so therefore, we are the Public Services pod.

The Public Services pod and our mission

We exist to make public services better for everyone.

We will do this by partnering with public service organisations to tackle their most important challenges; empowering them to deliver world-class services that are effective, inclusive, accessible, and sustainable.

And our team is crucial to making this all happen. The Public Services pod is made up of people who want to create better services for citizens, patients, anyone who interacts with public sector services.

Our work

Giving a voice to people detained under the Mental Health Act

A new Government policy is being introduced to allow people who are being detained under the Mental Health Act (MHA) to document their needs in advance of being detained so that in the future, their care can be more appropriate, individual, and in line with their wishes. We’ve been working with the NHS Transformation Directorate to detail the best way to gather this information that both puts those being detained at the centre, and facilitates the best mechanism for staff to capture and action their needs.

Over 6 months, we worked in a combined team with the NHS and DHSC to look at the existing service and the introduction of Advance Choice Documents (ACDs) to: understand, prototype, and explore potential solutions; review and influence policy; and create a plan for rolling out ACDs for usage.

Developing a deep understanding of the complex existing system allowed us to find the best opportunities to introduce ACDs that will require the least change in behaviour, but the most benefit for service users.

Ultimately, we provided the Department of Health and Social Care with clarity on what was needed to implement the new policy. cxpartners and NHSE&I are planning to continue supporting local teams through implementation, ensuring service user and service provider needs continue to be balanced and met.

Learn more about From ‘Digital Government’ to ‘Public Services’, why we’ve changed our team name

Amanda Payne

Reach out to Amanda Payne

Experience Strategy Director

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