Frimley ICB Board Development

Challenge

In July 2022 Integrated Care Boards were established as statutory bodies. For the 42 Integrated Care Systems across the UK, this marked a shift from informal partnership working to formalised collaboration, and the challenge was therefore to quickly develop the trust, relationships and shared purpose that would enable ICB Boards to operate effectively.

Programme

CoCreate has been working alongside Senior Executives across the Frimley health and social care system for several years, building their capacity to work collaboratively as they transitioned from a Shadow Accountable Care System to a fully fledged Integrated Care System.

Once Integrated Care Boards were established in July 2022, CoCreate was again selected to deliver development work for this nascent Board. We understood quickly that formalising governance arrangements risked undermining the trust and informal spirit of collaboration which had become a hallmark of Frimley’s relationship-first approach to system working (characterised by the ‘Frimley Way’).

We conducted 1:1s with Board members and created an Insights Report that synthesised the relational, strategic and operational challenges facing the Board. As Board members reflected on these shared challenges, we knew that building trust was critical, and we turned to the uniquely powerful iEQ9 Psychometric tool to accelerate this. Exploring our (often subconscious) motivations and drivers can be confronting work, and Board members all commented on the depth of self-awareness and insight into others that the iEQ9 process generated.

Their iEQ9 Team Report enabled the Board to examine their collective strengths, risks and development blind spots, enabling higher quality dialogue about some of the priorities facing the system. Building on this, we introduced the Three Horizons methodology to help the Board to develop a shared picture about the future, the key challenges they faced today and the innovation they needed to get behind which would enable them to navigate the path from Horizon 1 to Horizon 3.

Impact

Follow-up interviews with Board members revealed the depth of impact from working with the iEQ9 the Three Horizons.

• We got to a great outcome with the iEQ9, and it’s helped me slow down with strategy conversations and warm others up to get them on the journey with me.
• I’m pretty much all in on iEQ9 – it’s really working well for me, and for us as a team. People reference in conversation thoughtfully, not as a stick to beat other people with.
• I’ve become better at spotting when I’m slipping into a more extreme version of my type when I may be creating noise or angst as a One – particularly my tendency to be task focused.
• Since we did the iEQ9 my life is making so much sense! At the beginning I just thought it’s another one of those things- there is bias in it, but I can’t believe how accurate it is.
• I really enjoyed iEQ9 – brought a lot of things into the more conscious level. For me personally as a Seven it helps me to recognise when I reframe things and avoid problems.

Both the iEQ9 and Three Horizons have become embedded as shared language for how the Board operate, and as of January 2025 we continue to provide regular development support to the Frimley Board.

Client experience