Introducing Loop – James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Introducing Loop
James Paget University Hospital is a vibrant university hospital providing care to over 250,000 patients. Named after the famed surgeon, The James Paget Hospital officially opened on 21 July 1982.
In early 2023, the organisation introduced Loop to their workforce as a replacement for RLDatix Me. We sat down and spoke with Nathan Bull, Digital Workforce Business Manager, who took us through how they rolled out Loop, and what they have seen since it’s introduction.
- 4,000+ staff
- 250,000 patients
Going big bang
“We wanted to rollout to the entire organisation rather than a phased rollout, this captures our vision of “one team”.
“We are a Roster team of 3 people that maintain over 200 rostered units, so rolling out to everyone at once made the most sense for us”
The right communication approach
"As a single hospital location, we did one big communication to push to all staff groups to let them know Loop was now available”
"Our staff were previously using RLDatix Me and so our communications focused on this being an upgrade, rather than anything brand new”!
“Selling Loop as a new product would have added a layer of complexity which we wanted to avoid, we now have over 2000 staff using Loop”
"We used items from the ‘Launching Loop’ Comms Kit supplied by RLDatix. For example, we put screensavers on every workstation promoting the new app”
What we’ve seen using Loop
- "All of our communications now go through Loop, so that all staff (including our bank workers) see our news and updates. Engagement and communication has improved, as staff are able to use the app when it’s convenient for them. It’s allowing staff to feel like they are always connected.”
- "Initially we intended to use Loop just for bank staff, but we then made the decision to roll out to everyone. This stopped potential upset from substantive staff being on a different system to bank, creating one team.”
- Moderation on the app? – “We found there was no extra admin work. We rolled out on in February 2023, and to this day we have had no day-to-day abuse reports through Loop.”
We asked staff at JPUH that use Loop on both IOS and Android ‘How would you rate your experience of using Loop?
Our top tips
"My advise to anyone rolling out Loop is, do not over complicate the rollout, or have a phased rollout. Keep it simple and don’t sell it as a brand-new product when you are moving on from EmployeeOnline or Me. We simply said Loop lets you do what you can do now but easier and better”
"Make sure all the comms you send out about Loop are consistent, keeping it simple and easy to understand.”
"Embrace it as a tool to communicate with staff. We know people don’t digest all emails but are more likely to read when it appears in their Loop newsfeed”
