This taster session on social entrepreneurship is based on a simple premise: Innovation is the tool of entrepreneurs. Innovation is not achieved by structural, bureaucratic solutions but by individuals who have great ideas, who see opportunities for change and who want to make a difference. If front line managers and clinicians are equipped with enterprise skills, knowledge and values, they will be able to contribute to the development of health services in unique, creative and innovative ways.Increasingly, entrepreneurship is considered to be one of the new, basic skills.

The NHS employs many dynamic people who have great ideas and who are prepared to take personal responsibility for change but their talent and energy can be quashed by organisational ‘immune systems’. However, common sense would tell us that if the creativity and inventiveness of front line managers can be harnessed and directed at health service priorities, then innovation will happen faster.

The session will introduce participants to the values, knowledge and skills of social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is a hybrid concept that combines public service ethos with the entrepreneurial practices and behaviours of the commercial sector. Social entrepreneurs take personal responsibility for improving health/social outcomes by identifying opportunities for change, by using tried and tested methodologies to generate ideas for innovation and by knowing how to execute these ideas. The result is a service improvement or the creation of a new, not for profit social enterprise that will improve health outcomes.

Social entrepreneurs often ‘make something out of nothing’. They achieve this by:

➢ working creatively across organisational and professional boundaries;

➢ brokering alliances;

➢ challenging orthodoxies;

➢ identifying resources and securing investment in an idea by making a successful pitch;

➢ moving between the lateral thinking of creativity and the linear thinking of business planning;

➢ knowing an opportunity when they see it.

From idea to viable venture or service improvement, there is a complex, iterative, sometimes messy journey that involves a mix of attributes, skills, knowledge and competences. This knowledge can be helpful to NHS front line managers who want to achieve change and can be shared. The duration of the session will be approximately 2 hours. Participants will be introduced to methods for generating ideas and on what to do first when a great idea hits.

Our presenter Ann Macfadyen joined the NHS eight years ago as Director for Partnership Development with a Health Authority in London following a successful career in Scotland as a social entrepreneur. Ann has a track record in building up award winning social enterprises, sometimes from the good idea stage, at community, regional and national levels. Over the last eight years Ann has enjoyed what she calls her ‘NHS apprenticeship’ and has held senior level posts in the Department of Health, the NHS Modernisation Agency, NW London Strategic Health Authority, the Regional Public Health Office for London and Severn and Wessex Deanery. Most recently, Ann has acted as Senior Health Advisor for the Young Foundation, a social innovation think tank. Ann sees huge potential in liberating the entrepreneurial power of individuals in the NHS where there is a wealth of talent, inventiveness and energy. She believes innovation will speed up when NHS organisations actively identify, sponsor and celebrate entrepreneurial people and reward entrepreneurial behaviour. www.annmacfadyen.com