Working with NHS Trust Board members to improve their understanding of risk and ensure that their Board Assurance Framework (BAF) could drive strategic decision-making

Problem

• Understanding of the nature of a BAF and its possible applications was confused within the Trust.
• There was little correlation between the risks identified in the BAF and the risks likely to impact on the ability of the organisation to deliver its strategic objectives.
• Strategic risks were not being appropriately managed.

Solution

• Explored and informed Executives’ and Non-Executives’ understanding of risk and the manner in which the proper application of a BAF can enable effective management of strategic risks.
• Facilitated the identification of strategic risks and their possible mitigations through open and constructively challenging discussions with Board members and other senior members of staff.
• Delivered targeted training of key individuals to ensure understanding of risk management was disseminated appropriately through the Trust.
• Established structures to ensure that the BAF could be used to drive the Trust’s strategic decision-making.

Outcomes and benefits

• Trust’s BAF recognised as “outstanding practice” by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) “very well thought out, primarily identifying major external threats to achieving the trusts high level strategic objectives and in identifying only the five main risks that were significant in this regard. Executive owners had been identified for each risk and scrutinising committees to provide assurance regarding mitigations and robust ongoing assessment”.
• Trust’s strategic decision-making driven by clear-sighted understanding of threats and opportunities facing it.