Background Our Heads of Department (HoDs) meetings had become stale, with several HoDs feeling that meetings often lacked direction, cohesion and purpose. HoDs felt that we did not always achieve the organisational vision of working as ‘One Team’, or fully understand each other’s roles. One of our clinical HoDs had attended a CAKE session, which details a constructive, fun approach to team building, with outcomes to aid changes to practice (Dickson, MacDonald, Drummond. SEEDS: Supporting & Enhancing Empowerment & Development through Storytelling: final report. Listen Up Storytelling; 2021). It was agreed that this model could be used for our HoDs team away-day, to help create a plan to re-structure future HoDs meetings.

Aim To increase unity and well-being (Matos. Leadership matters: measuring team well-being. 15Be) in the HoDs team, and develop a constructive model for future meetings, whilst simultaneously creating a prototype for departmental meetings.

Method The away-day was planned and structured using the ‘eight slices of CAKE’, which ensured that we checked in with each other, and had reflective and fun activities that created a safe place to share stories and learn from each other’s experiences (Dickson, MacDonald. CAKE: A perfect recipe for self-care, and individual and team well-being. ListenUpStorytelling.). The ‘Slice 3’ part of the day, focusing on a shared purpose, was used to draw up priorities for future meetings to achieve. ‘Slice 5’ drew out issues and feelings, whilst ‘Slice 6’ resulted in the creation of an action plan.

Results

• Action plans were drawn up for three aspects of work, including the re–structuring of HODs meetings.

• Several HODs have now re–structured their own departmental meetings to include a check–in at the beginning and end of their meetings.

• Evaluation of the day established that HoDS recognised that we all experience the same issues and challenges, despite differing roles.

• The team felt more bonded than on any previous away–day, and were pleased to have a constructive plan for change.

Conclusion We now work more effectively as a middle-management team, and have meetings that are productive and enjoyable.