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Hundreds of colleagues from across the trust came together last week for the Group Support Services Marketplace, a five-day programme designed to help us rethink how we work, learning from experts and sparking ideas that support better care.

The week blended inspiring talks, workshops and digital skills sessions, giving staff practical tools to take back to their teams. From AI and data to collaboration, apprenticeships and improvement methods, the aim was simple: build confidence, grow skills and help create a more modern, agile and efficient way of working.

Starting with the customer, not the process

The week opened with Amazon, who shared how they maintain innovation at scale.

Leanne Hurrell, Head of Regional Public Sector, set the tone: “Our mission is to be Earth’s most customer-centric company. That’s why we always start with the customer and work backwards from their pain point.”

Introducing Amazon’s four pillars of innovation and encouraging colleagues to act rather than wait for perfect certainty. “If you wait for perfection before you act, you’re already too slow,” she said. Ben Mansell followed with examples of how tools like automated pharmacies and clinical-coding bots are reshaping services.

Making AI real, safe and useful

Deloitte’s Philip Brocklehurst explored how AI is improving care across the NHS, including dermatology support and ambient voice note-taking. Highlighting how bias in training data affects performance and why every use case needs clear evaluation criteria.

An example from Great Ormond Street Hospital, where ambient voice technology is saving clinicians around 47 minutes per shift on documentation. As Phil noted, “AI models are only as good as the data they’re trained on. Equity must be designed in from the start.”

The power of Microsoft 365

Microsoft demonstrated how Copilot and O365 can streamline everyday work.

Rob Orwin showed how Copilot analyses long documents and produces instant diagrams, explaining that it “keeps asking questions to get it right” and allows users to save prompts for future use. The takeaway was simple: Copilot is most effective when automation, governance and thoughtful use work hand in hand.

Building digital confidence with Multiverse

Our digital training partner Multiverse highlighted why data and digital capability are becoming essential across the NHS. Their Data Academy and AI Academy frameworks showed how everyone—no matter their role—contributes to a data-driven organisation.

“Everyone across the NHS interacts with data and technology, whether for five hours a week or fifty,” they said. “When those skills are strengthened, the whole system moves faster.” They also made clear that AI should ease workloads, not threaten roles. “We’re not taking jobs away. We’re giving people time back to focus on the important parts of their work.”

Growing our own talent

Liam Slattery, Director of people services, delivered a session demonstrating how Teams, Planner, SharePoint and OneNote can work together to boost productivity. “Go and play with these tools. You can’t break them. And if you can, Microsoft will be pleased to know!” Emphasis was put on the importance of self-teaching, showing what’s possible when teams are supported to experiment.

Exploring apprenticeships

Susana Lucena-Amaro, Associate director for learning & development and apprenticeships, guided colleagues through the range of apprenticeship options, tackling myths around funding and time commitments. With more than 700 staff already enrolled, apprenticeships remain one of the strongest routes for long-term skills and career development.

She emphasised the importance of using the apprenticeship levy: “We only get that money back if staff are enrolled. If we don’t use it, it’s lost.”

Improving how we work, together

Quality Improvement leads Tess Baird and Jubli Begum hosted a hands-on workshop exploring how teams can strengthen engagement. Using techniques like 15 Percent Solutions and Troika, colleagues worked together to challenge assumptions, remove frustrations and design small changes they could make immediately.

A week powered by curiosity and collaboration

Across every session, one theme stood out: small shifts in how we work can lead to big improvements for staff, teams and patients.

Thank you to all our internal and external partners, and to every colleague who joined, asked questions and tried something new.