1 00:00:00,900 --> 00:00:04,440 Okay. Can you just start by saying your name and what your job title is? 2 00:00:04,800 --> 00:00:08,280 Yes, I'm Tony. First time the director of medical Sciences Division i.t. 3 00:00:08,340 --> 00:00:17,220 Services. Okay. And going back to the very beginning of when you first got interested in, well, I suppose science more broadly, 4 00:00:18,780 --> 00:00:23,280 how did you get started in your career and what were the main kind of staging posts on the way? 5 00:00:24,510 --> 00:00:29,040 Okay, so I arrived in Oxford University right at the end of the 1980s. 6 00:00:29,670 --> 00:00:36,150 And so you'd already decided to be a scientist at that stage? Well, I had applied successfully to read a physics degree. 7 00:00:36,740 --> 00:00:43,889 And so I think I and I probably made that decision at 16 at the point where I was choosing A-level studies. 8 00:00:43,890 --> 00:00:47,370 It could have been language, it could have been science. And it was a tough decision as much as science. 9 00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:52,530 And I don't think I have any regrets. I enjoy language, but I didn't obviously pursue it any further. 10 00:00:54,120 --> 00:00:58,229 So I did a well, I came chosen to do a physics degree and decided it was fossils here. 11 00:00:58,230 --> 00:01:05,730 So I actually changed chemistry in the first five weeks and so did a chemistry degree and graduated in 1993. 12 00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:13,679 At that point I had a school friend who was working here in the the Institute of Molecular Medicine, 13 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:19,260 now called the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, because she'd done, I think, a biochemistry degree. 14 00:01:19,270 --> 00:01:23,280 So it was in the first year of her doctorate when I was in my last year of my four year chemistry degree. 15 00:01:24,390 --> 00:01:33,000 And it was kind of supported by often sort of lab staff because that was the only way you got money to do it. 16 00:01:33,300 --> 00:01:34,980 Back in the early nineties. 17 00:01:35,820 --> 00:01:43,050 So anyway, the imam decided that it wanted a a proper IT person whose job it was to do, I think rather than being a bit of a sideline. 18 00:01:43,800 --> 00:01:48,000 And so the short version is that I was approached and got the job. 19 00:01:48,660 --> 00:01:52,020 So how could you become aware that it. Well, doing chemistry. 20 00:01:52,200 --> 00:01:55,230 Well, it's just been an interest through childhood. 21 00:01:55,590 --> 00:02:00,540 And then in my part two year, I studied physical chemistry, doing a lot of nuclear magnetic resonance. 22 00:02:01,620 --> 00:02:08,040 And of course, a lot of the research involved simulating the experiments with programming. 23 00:02:08,040 --> 00:02:17,930 And we used for fencing so and so programming and simulating the experiments and then actually doing the experiments. 24 00:02:17,940 --> 00:02:23,340 So that required quite a lot of physicality and code writing to make all that work. 25 00:02:23,410 --> 00:02:29,040 So I suppose that's that's where it all came from. I was always interested in computers in my college days. 26 00:02:29,070 --> 00:02:32,580 I was the one you'd find in the computer room at 10:00 at night rather than the volume. 27 00:02:35,820 --> 00:02:39,540 So okay, so you say you started out at the imam as that? 28 00:02:39,630 --> 00:02:43,020 Yes. Go to person for it. Yeah. Where did it go for? 29 00:02:43,380 --> 00:02:50,750 So I did five years at the imam and had appointed two sorority staff to work with me at that point. 30 00:02:51,510 --> 00:02:59,339 And an opportunity came up at him at my old college, Corpus Christi, actually, where I had read my chemistry degree five years ago. 31 00:02:59,340 --> 00:03:06,660 At that point, to be there, I came out and just they had decided they needed a full time i.t manager having had a part time i.t. person. 32 00:03:07,590 --> 00:03:13,020 So we joined as a team and I did five years there that a lot of getting networking 33 00:03:13,020 --> 00:03:17,399 and self-financed student accommodation that was sort of that was in 98 2003. 34 00:03:17,400 --> 00:03:23,040 So that was about the time that was happening. I'm just trying to remember when, when did we all start using the internet? 35 00:03:23,520 --> 00:03:28,700 It's very difficult to think of the pre incidents in the mid to late 1980s, 36 00:03:28,710 --> 00:03:34,260 so students would expect to be able to get online by the end of the nineties, maybe sort of two. 37 00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:41,730 Yes, yes, yes. I mean, network connections and student rooms were was starting to become a thing in 99 and 2000. 38 00:03:42,570 --> 00:03:49,080 And yes, it's interesting reflecting I think what connections to ten megabits and you know your average 39 00:03:49,080 --> 00:03:53,129 broadband is probably five times that now and could be ten times that in your own home. 40 00:03:53,130 --> 00:03:57,240 So it's it's amazing how it's moved on. So that was five years. 41 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:07,380 And then in 2003, I was asked to do a maternity leave cover at what was then the UK's the University Computing Service, which I did. 42 00:04:08,130 --> 00:04:11,700 So I split my time, I think 6040 in a suite in Corpus and yes, yes. 43 00:04:13,530 --> 00:04:16,560 And at the end of that, there was an opening for me. 44 00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:24,899 That's all you see. So I moved fully 20, yes, in late 2003, and I did various roles there. 45 00:04:24,900 --> 00:04:31,920 My main one was running the department called I.T Support Staff Services and my job was to coordinate the i.t 46 00:04:31,920 --> 00:04:38,970 staff and run an annual conference and training events and supply relationship management and that sort of thing. 47 00:04:39,240 --> 00:04:43,110 And this was for i.t staff who were in other departments around the Indian colleges. 48 00:04:43,290 --> 00:04:53,369 Yes. Yeah. So I was at Oakes and until it became i.t services in 2012 and I stayed for another four years and then 49 00:04:53,370 --> 00:04:59,700 the opportunity for this role the Director of medical Sciences division i.t came up and so I applied and. 50 00:05:00,310 --> 00:05:09,730 So I've been here coming up in seven years now. So a kind of return to your original attachment to wanting to do medical research. 51 00:05:11,030 --> 00:05:17,150 So what? Oh, I've got to ask these questions. 52 00:05:17,170 --> 00:05:25,850 And are there particular challenges to do with working with and for academics and clinicians? 53 00:05:27,290 --> 00:05:32,220 So we don't work for clinicians when they're in that capacity? 54 00:05:32,260 --> 00:05:35,630 No. So we support research and teaching of administration. 55 00:05:35,660 --> 00:05:42,050 Yes. Clinical I.T. is provided by the body called I Am and Information Management Technology, 56 00:05:42,530 --> 00:05:46,640 which is part of the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. 57 00:05:47,150 --> 00:05:50,750 So although we have a close relationship with them, we don't support clinical work. 58 00:05:51,530 --> 00:05:58,100 But to answer your question, all the challenges, yes, there are always challenges and in research by its nature is unpredictable. 59 00:05:58,160 --> 00:06:04,280 You don't quite know what's around the corner, and the way research is funded means it's a bit lumpy. 60 00:06:04,550 --> 00:06:12,110 So a situation we often see you'll you'll have a PI get to the end of their grant and there might be a chunk of money left. 61 00:06:12,110 --> 00:06:18,730 So they might think, oh, I'll buy that bit of equipment that I need. And then they'll come to us and say, Oh, we've got this bit of equipment. 62 00:06:18,740 --> 00:06:21,830 It's going to be producing this vast amount of data. So could you store it for us? 63 00:06:21,830 --> 00:06:27,940 And of course, there's no budget for data storage and we can't just promising growth and growth. 64 00:06:27,950 --> 00:06:34,909 So so that can be a challenge. Sometimes my approach to this role is to try and be on people's range so they come and talk 65 00:06:34,910 --> 00:06:40,790 to us before making i.t decisions so we can help them to make sustainable decisions without 66 00:06:40,790 --> 00:06:45,709 other departments that have bought more and more and more storage but don't have a plan 67 00:06:45,710 --> 00:06:50,930 for what happens when that particular hardware goes out of support and becomes a problem. 68 00:06:50,930 --> 00:06:57,980 So yes, that's some of the challenges and i think in any i.t operation bear supporting academia or anything else, 69 00:06:58,250 --> 00:07:04,969 the more support you provide, the more support people want. So I guess we should get some idea of the scope of what you're dealing with. 70 00:07:04,970 --> 00:07:10,910 So you've got, you've got hardware, you've got software, you've got storage, you've got communications. 71 00:07:11,180 --> 00:07:15,290 Yes, there. So networks right across the division, we work in close partnership with I.t Services. 72 00:07:15,290 --> 00:07:18,460 He provides the networking around the city, sort of, you know, 73 00:07:18,470 --> 00:07:24,290 not on university estate and then that effectively hands off to us as it comes into buildings. 74 00:07:25,370 --> 00:07:28,160 So we're managing networks across about 60 buildings, 75 00:07:28,220 --> 00:07:37,190 I think moved and probably approaching 10,000 people who are eligible to use our services and medical sciences. 76 00:07:37,700 --> 00:07:42,979 And it's regarded by the users presumably as a kind of bottomless pit, as it were. 77 00:07:42,980 --> 00:07:50,150 It's just something that's on tap, is it? Yes, There's a lot of scurrying in the background that has to go on to make it feel like that. 78 00:07:50,270 --> 00:07:54,649 Yes, there's there's a lot of scurrying and it doesn't always feel like a smoothly running topic the most of the time. 79 00:07:54,650 --> 00:07:58,760 I think it does. But yes, I'd say we learnt to use the image of the swarm, you know, 80 00:07:58,790 --> 00:08:03,709 with the graceful body and neck above the water and the feet flapping like crazy over the wall. 81 00:08:03,710 --> 00:08:09,530 So when people can't see, that is the picture. I think that's exactly how it looks. 82 00:08:09,540 --> 00:08:18,440 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And have the demands on its systems increased as research has become has become more data focussed. 83 00:08:19,550 --> 00:08:27,920 Yes, there is more and more demand for i.t systems and i.t systems that people can move around with while they're doing the research, 84 00:08:28,550 --> 00:08:33,170 while they're gathering data. And yes, data just gets bigger and bigger. 85 00:08:33,170 --> 00:08:38,510 As you know, the speed of sequencing machines gets quicker, the resolution of microscopes gets bigger, 86 00:08:39,020 --> 00:08:42,890 there is more and more data and more need to move it around quickly. 87 00:08:44,580 --> 00:08:51,860 And where do you actually keep it as a matter of interest? I mean, one here, massive data stores in the Arctic because of the heat issues. 88 00:08:51,860 --> 00:08:54,950 But yeah, we keep a lot here. We have some of it parked. 89 00:08:55,250 --> 00:08:59,420 So the university keeps quite a lot of data on site. 90 00:08:59,440 --> 00:09:08,300 I mean, in terms of medical sciences, we have a fairly large data centre at the Gemini cliff and another fairly large one on the older campus site. 91 00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:12,740 So that means that if we lose one of them, the other one will will support. 92 00:09:13,100 --> 00:09:18,829 But that model of kind of owning all the storage is, is getting to the point of unsustainability. 93 00:09:18,830 --> 00:09:26,090 So we're actively investigating using cloud storage and of course the universities, it's a three, six five system is all Microsoft Cloud. 94 00:09:26,510 --> 00:09:30,200 So that's not servers that the university owns or has to look after. 95 00:09:31,550 --> 00:09:34,580 The university does have a data centre in Slough, 96 00:09:34,700 --> 00:09:44,090 the discursive centre where there's quite a lot of offloaded and and some of for it which is university land. 97 00:09:44,120 --> 00:09:55,590 So it's kind of spread around the city and cloud is I think partly the solution to to this problem of ever demanding ever bigger demands on data. 98 00:09:55,880 --> 00:10:02,420 And we have a new research group perhaps appear in the university and they might have 500 terabytes of data 99 00:10:02,960 --> 00:10:07,610 and we can't afford to be sitting around with 500 terabytes waiting for someone who might need to use it. 100 00:10:07,610 --> 00:10:11,419 We need to be able to expand quickly and cloud is the way to do that. 101 00:10:11,420 --> 00:10:18,960 It means you don't have to buy a load of metal and configuration. On somewhere to put they find enough power for it and find some cooling for it. 102 00:10:19,470 --> 00:10:23,040 So I think things will move more and more into the cloud. 103 00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:29,600 Hmm. I suppose that partly raises an issue which should have been on the list of things I said before, which is security. 104 00:10:29,610 --> 00:10:34,470 And a lot of this data is is presumably sensitive in one way or another. 105 00:10:34,510 --> 00:10:41,069 Yes. So there are lots of contractual requirements around data. The GDPR legislation gives a lot of that. 106 00:10:41,070 --> 00:10:45,270 And there's a special category of data that sort of sensitive personal data. 107 00:10:45,270 --> 00:10:48,540 And of course, being medical science is quite a lot of else is that. 108 00:10:48,630 --> 00:10:55,500 So any data that can be identified back to individuals has to be stored at a much higher level of assurance. 109 00:10:56,190 --> 00:10:59,129 But that's that's perfectly possible in the cloud mean the cloud providers know 110 00:10:59,130 --> 00:11:05,100 that and so long as they can show that they have taken steps to ensure security, 111 00:11:05,250 --> 00:11:09,240 that's generally okay. There are sometimes questions about jurisdiction. 112 00:11:10,850 --> 00:11:18,690 You know, if your data is in the face of the data centre in the US, then US law is very different to UK and EU law. 113 00:11:18,840 --> 00:11:26,629 So so that something has to be considered. But that's that's all manageable and that's really the, the art of information governance. 114 00:11:26,630 --> 00:11:33,270 So it's more than just I.T., it's governance as well. But is that that's all still part of your remit? 115 00:11:34,100 --> 00:11:39,120 I'm part of my remit, but Medical sciences division, the divisional office, 116 00:11:39,900 --> 00:11:44,160 also has an information governance hub, and that's an information governance expert. 117 00:11:44,580 --> 00:11:51,450 And it would be wrong for me to lead on information governance as the lead author to provide it, because I'd be marking my own homework right then. 118 00:11:51,450 --> 00:12:00,650 It's doing some accountability. Yes, yes, yes, of course. Both So you arrived into this post in was it 2010, 16, 2016 and 16. 119 00:12:00,660 --> 00:12:03,780 Okay. So you got your feet properly under the table? 120 00:12:04,140 --> 00:12:09,629 Yes, indeed. 2019. And so let's get round to COVID. 121 00:12:09,630 --> 00:12:18,540 Finally. Can you remember when you first heard about it and how you gradually came to realise that it might be going to affect what you were doing? 122 00:12:18,660 --> 00:12:27,569 Well, I think over the Christmas period time it became a thing, you know, in December 2019 it was sort of rumbling. 123 00:12:27,570 --> 00:12:32,670 And then I think I remember hearing radio reports late December about, you know, 124 00:12:32,670 --> 00:12:38,250 how this thing was happening in Ireland and might be a problem for the rest of the world. 125 00:12:39,850 --> 00:12:49,169 I think the first time it directly touched domestic services or the affects of it is that there was a group doing a longitudinal study. 126 00:12:49,170 --> 00:12:54,030 So getting data from people who had been hospitalised with COVID and then tracking them 127 00:12:55,020 --> 00:13:00,509 through the journey through hospital and onwards and suddenly sometimes until death of course. 128 00:13:00,510 --> 00:13:06,690 But so that was gathering a lot of data and we provide a service called Redcap from research data capture. 129 00:13:07,860 --> 00:13:15,810 And I remember saying to the team in January 2020 says, Let's not put this on the red carpet so that everybody else uses this could get quite big. 130 00:13:16,980 --> 00:13:24,120 So so we we spun off another sort of, you know, virtual environment and made it quite big, 131 00:13:25,170 --> 00:13:33,959 but it rapidly got out of hand and my colleagues had to do a lot of work, sort of fragmenting that database into manageable bits through the pandemic. 132 00:13:33,960 --> 00:13:37,500 So, yes, that's when we first became aware well, 133 00:13:37,800 --> 00:13:43,440 when we first realised that the way we work was going to be directly affected by this global pandemic, 134 00:13:44,640 --> 00:13:54,090 and we get to sort of mid-March, that was when the university decided it was going to essentially close, 135 00:13:54,090 --> 00:14:00,140 that the students were no longer going to come in. So you weren't supposed to come to work unless you were doing something essentially. 136 00:14:00,330 --> 00:14:06,569 That's right. Did that have implications for what you had you had to do as a department? 137 00:14:06,570 --> 00:14:09,510 Yes. I mean, I remember saying to the team, you know, every night, 138 00:14:09,540 --> 00:14:13,989 take your laptop home with you and work on the basis you may not be coming back for a few months. 139 00:14:13,990 --> 00:14:17,760 But I think we all thought it was a few months that nobody really thought it was two or three years. 140 00:14:18,510 --> 00:14:21,840 And so that was the immediate implication on the team. 141 00:14:23,250 --> 00:14:29,160 But of course, that's the whole of the rest of the medical sciences division that suddenly became a massive demand, 142 00:14:29,550 --> 00:14:36,180 as did web cameras and headphones and all that sort of thing. So there was a big scramble to to provide those things and of course, 143 00:14:36,180 --> 00:14:41,520 providing support to people when you couldn't get any of them was was quite interesting. 144 00:14:41,520 --> 00:14:48,030 And Gerald, one of my deputies and I have many stories of standing in people's front gardens with them, so they were near enough, 145 00:14:48,060 --> 00:14:54,230 their wife or I, to get the signal, but not going into the houses to, to put each other at risk of of transmission. 146 00:14:54,240 --> 00:15:03,330 So yes, we were extremely busy in those first few months trying to get people up and working in ways that they could at home. 147 00:15:03,330 --> 00:15:08,850 And, you know, I remember driving some I take it to someone's house in Bicester and I sort of put it on her driveway 148 00:15:08,850 --> 00:15:13,940 and then stepped away before she came to collect it so that we didn't have to have those two. 149 00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:17,940 Mission risks. So yes, there was a lot of extra support. 150 00:15:18,530 --> 00:15:23,090 And there were specific things, too. So I've already mentioned the longitudinal study that is work. 151 00:15:23,960 --> 00:15:32,810 And meanwhile, the General Institute was doing the work on the AstraZeneca vaccine, and that attracted a huge amount of international attention. 152 00:15:32,840 --> 00:15:33,830 Not all of the nine. 153 00:15:35,180 --> 00:15:45,229 So we had very quickly to build a relationship of the National Cyber Security Centre who were very helpful and very supportive and helped us take 154 00:15:45,230 --> 00:15:55,100 various steps to ensure that that research and its data integrity was acceptable to the actual threatened cyber attacks against it in with it. 155 00:15:57,730 --> 00:16:05,200 I don't remember the precise details, but there there were cyber attacks around the UK academic community. 156 00:16:07,450 --> 00:16:10,779 Nothing that ever got to us, thankfully. 157 00:16:10,780 --> 00:16:16,120 But I think that's because we were proactive and the government was proactive in putting us in touch with 158 00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:21,340 the National Cyber Security Centre and making a lot of resource available to to do that protective action. 159 00:16:22,390 --> 00:16:26,740 So that was, that was helpful and interesting to actually dealing about social level. 160 00:16:27,810 --> 00:16:31,260 Is that not something, something that hadn't come up previously, you know? 161 00:16:31,390 --> 00:16:38,190 Well, you know, medical research happens all over the world and it's not it's not that interesting to criminals generally that, 162 00:16:38,410 --> 00:16:41,990 you know, getting a vaccine for COVID in late 2020 was the Holy Grail. 163 00:16:42,010 --> 00:16:42,680 And it were. 164 00:16:44,680 --> 00:16:52,600 But for regulatory purposes, you you have to be able to demonstrate to a very high level of confidence that the data you have about those vaccines, 165 00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:55,090 particularly the clinical trials, is intact. 166 00:16:55,510 --> 00:17:01,239 And as you know, if you've got shares in AstraZeneca, it's in your interest to make the data look better than it is. 167 00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:07,420 Isn't that something to make very sure that doesn't happen? And so there was a lot of work also protecting the clinical trial and its data. 168 00:17:07,780 --> 00:17:15,339 And we made sure we were shadowing the people in the Oxford Vaccine Group to so that if any of them became ill or became otherwise unavailable, 169 00:17:15,340 --> 00:17:18,520 we would be able to step in and continue to provide it. 170 00:17:20,200 --> 00:17:23,230 So it was an interesting time, certainly. Mm hmm. 171 00:17:23,860 --> 00:17:29,950 And what about new projects that it started up with? With it sudden demands for extra support? 172 00:17:29,980 --> 00:17:34,780 Well, data projects and so on. Well, there was this thing called the Early Alert Service. 173 00:17:34,780 --> 00:17:44,170 Yes. Which Chris Price, divisional registrar and I think you spoken to and asked demonstrate to take the lead on. 174 00:17:44,980 --> 00:17:54,820 So that was that was a wonderful project actually. We we designed the light system to integrate with the university's single sign on and so on, 175 00:17:54,820 --> 00:17:59,799 so people could book tests and get results quickly and people in their departments 176 00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:05,379 and colleges who'd spox amusingly single points of contact were getting access 177 00:18:05,380 --> 00:18:10,240 to data quickly so they could help students and staff to self isolate appropriately 178 00:18:10,240 --> 00:18:14,410 and essentially keep the university running in as much as it could run. 179 00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:19,160 And I think that was that was very successful in that aim. 180 00:18:20,110 --> 00:18:24,489 And it was also fascinating working across departments. 181 00:18:24,490 --> 00:18:28,220 And the way that they have conversations are not necessarily very good at so. 182 00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:31,410 So we went through several operations managers. 183 00:18:31,430 --> 00:18:38,830 I was the last one I did the last 11 months, I think, and we were having daily meetings on teams and and of course, because it was a pandemic, 184 00:18:38,890 --> 00:18:46,090 this I built some really strong relationships with people who I'd never met and didn't meet until quite a long time later over. 185 00:18:46,570 --> 00:18:48,310 So that was that was fascinating. 186 00:18:49,410 --> 00:19:00,760 And, you know, the input from estates to make sure we had testing pods that was flowing through them to building testing pods. 187 00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:02,670 When we were doing the lateral flow testing, 188 00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:10,820 they assisted lateral flow testing and university sports for basically letting me take over the sports hall and turn it into a vaccination centre, 189 00:19:10,870 --> 00:19:16,000 you know, all those things. It was just I mean, your responsibility went well beyond just the I.T. side of it. 190 00:19:16,180 --> 00:19:21,790 It was the whole lot. Yes. So I was responsible for the I'd say throughout it when I was the operations director for the last 11 months. 191 00:19:21,830 --> 00:19:25,270 Yes. So we ended at the end of March 22. 192 00:19:25,900 --> 00:19:30,210 So I took it to the end of April 2018. That's right. No. 193 00:19:30,910 --> 00:19:39,390 Sort of. Yes. Yes. I previously interviewed one of the group of retired GP's who had all the results liaison team. 194 00:19:39,460 --> 00:19:43,360 They were fantastic. Yes, yes, yes. They were really, really good. 195 00:19:44,290 --> 00:19:50,529 And so initially they would find students as soon as they saw positive results and say, look, you'll have seen a positive results. 196 00:19:50,530 --> 00:19:54,460 Or if you haven't, you will shortly, here's what to do. They were very reassuring. 197 00:19:55,060 --> 00:20:00,580 I'm very directive actually as well, and made sure the students isolated properly and didn't spread. 198 00:20:01,390 --> 00:20:07,450 We're very proud that I think we managed to prevent spread from university staff and students to the general public. 199 00:20:07,450 --> 00:20:11,310 And I think we've only documented cases of have that sort of spread. 200 00:20:13,270 --> 00:20:17,320 So that was good. Yes, the resources and team were a great bonus, actually. 201 00:20:18,430 --> 00:20:22,500 And, you know, some of us have had them as our college GP's 30 years ago as well. 202 00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:28,430 So that was quite interesting. And there were the clinical leads as well. 203 00:20:28,450 --> 00:20:31,930 So Professor Chris, what else was the clinical lead? 204 00:20:32,140 --> 00:20:40,000 During my time as as operations manager and Chris Commonwealth, I thought if you interviewing him, 205 00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:44,920 but professor of Infectious Medicine there, the person I spoke to was Liz Greenhill. 206 00:20:45,010 --> 00:20:48,820 Okay. Yes, I think I've forgotten who put me in touch with her. 207 00:20:51,540 --> 00:20:54,690 But actually she and I were fellow mums. I mean, our children are really. 208 00:20:54,730 --> 00:20:57,440 Right. Okay. Okay. So that's interesting seeing her for ages. 209 00:20:57,470 --> 00:21:05,790 And yes, I jumped on the name because she was kind of the hiring team over the lead leads and results liaison team people, 210 00:21:06,180 --> 00:21:10,130 and they had a team of about eight of them. I actually just told you the list. Yeah. 211 00:21:10,140 --> 00:21:15,520 And they were they were fantastic, actually. And it was the sort of situation where, you know, we all had each other's friendly wisdom. 212 00:21:15,540 --> 00:21:18,420 We could all phone at any time of day or night if something had gone wrong. 213 00:21:18,570 --> 00:21:25,410 So inevitably there was the field outbreak where we had to get in touch quickly with the College of Departments and give them quick advice. 214 00:21:26,730 --> 00:21:32,460 And there was also the interface with what started as Public Health England and is now the UK Health Security Agency. 215 00:21:33,150 --> 00:21:36,270 They would sometimes directors to test a whole bunch of people. 216 00:21:36,270 --> 00:21:41,370 I think there was one time we had two people who'd been singing in a choir practice who tested 217 00:21:41,370 --> 00:21:47,250 positive the next day and of course our hearts all sunk and came to see us to test the whole choir. 218 00:21:47,400 --> 00:21:50,940 Nobody got it. So and I think that's the thing. 219 00:21:50,940 --> 00:21:55,380 As we went through the pandemic, levels of immunity among the population have risen, 220 00:21:55,470 --> 00:21:59,790 I mean, risen from infections initially, but then with more and more vaccination. 221 00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:05,940 So transmission was not always guaranteed in situations where you think, gosh, that's going to have happened. 222 00:22:06,540 --> 00:22:14,700 I thought we had a meeting in this office, Oh, it's probably September time, five of us around this table, this very table. 223 00:22:15,990 --> 00:22:19,290 And then one of them ran away. The next morning. 224 00:22:19,290 --> 00:22:22,760 He said, I just woke up in the middle of the night with an awful fever, and I've done a great thing. 225 00:22:22,770 --> 00:22:27,990 Positive test line. I mean, I thought, oh, no, that's all of us, you know, inadvertent co-dependency, but none of us got it. 226 00:22:28,950 --> 00:22:32,429 Which I thought was really interesting, was that after vaccination. 227 00:22:32,430 --> 00:22:35,580 Sorry. Oh, yes, Yes, it was September 22, I think so. 228 00:22:35,730 --> 00:22:40,410 Although that resolution doesn't necessarily. Well, clearly doesn't prevent infection, does it? 229 00:22:41,030 --> 00:22:49,620 You know, it doesn't stop infection particularly well, but it does seem to stop severe illness lecture, which is good. 230 00:22:49,830 --> 00:22:57,300 Mm hmm. And I mean, it's so I have talked to people about a number of big data hungry studies like combat. 231 00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:06,270 Uh, I can I won't remember all the acronyms now, but also things like the work that Lisa does, modelling and so on. 232 00:23:06,630 --> 00:23:10,050 Did they kind of come to you? Did they have increased? 233 00:23:10,770 --> 00:23:16,110 So there were some things. So clearly attempts to coax in primary care thanked her. 234 00:23:16,120 --> 00:23:20,850 I helped her spend a very large amounts of money on lots of service to do her air work, 235 00:23:21,180 --> 00:23:26,960 which she basically crunches through raw data from GP surgeries around the country to try and see patterns. 236 00:23:26,970 --> 00:23:30,370 So that was a piece of it, certainly. And. 237 00:23:32,270 --> 00:23:37,490 Yeah. And as I say, this longitudinal study that I mentioned that kind of took on a life of its own and became much bigger than we thought. 238 00:23:38,420 --> 00:23:43,460 And is there a research angle to what you do as well? I mean, other things that are newly developed? 239 00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:47,140 Yes. I mean, we're not really a research department. 240 00:23:47,270 --> 00:23:55,520 It's but yes, I mean, of course, when new requirements come along, then it is our job to research is perhaps a slightly strong word, 241 00:23:55,520 --> 00:24:02,240 but certainly to investigate what's available in the market and evaluate this against requirements, whether you call that research or not Quite so. 242 00:24:02,570 --> 00:24:09,320 I mean, people anything research these days didn't like it, but it's not research involved in writing new bits of software, that kind of thing. 243 00:24:09,620 --> 00:24:10,280 Well, I mean, 244 00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:18,140 we wrote software for early alerts and as the landscape changed and the government kept changing the requirements in response to the pandemic, 245 00:24:20,450 --> 00:24:24,319 then yes, we had to keep rereleasing the software that we'd written to run it. 246 00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:28,910 So that was that was quite interesting. And we developed a really sort of agile release cycle. 247 00:24:30,230 --> 00:24:37,010 We had a really good business analyst called Brendan Donnelly, who was very good at keeping us to a minimum viable product, 248 00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:44,090 but also to actually starting us through user stories so we could make sure that what 249 00:24:44,090 --> 00:24:47,540 we were providing was actually fitting with what was happening at the coalface. 250 00:24:48,110 --> 00:24:54,410 You know, the, the students in their rooms, the spokes in their offices, the nurses in the testing pods and all those things. 251 00:24:55,850 --> 00:25:00,020 And, you know, all against a backdrop of having to try and avoid getting COVID. 252 00:25:00,890 --> 00:25:06,160 So, yes, we did all work at home a lot, but we had to be out and about quite a bit as well. 253 00:25:06,170 --> 00:25:12,400 You know, if a nurse can't log into a computer in a testing pod, somebody has got to go there and help you. 254 00:25:13,100 --> 00:25:16,759 You can do some stuff remotely. But we were out and about a bit. 255 00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:22,249 And of course at the beginning there was some departments writing letters of authority for people to leave their houses and go to work. 256 00:25:22,250 --> 00:25:27,680 But I think we took the view that, you know, we all have university cards that say medical science is division. 257 00:25:28,630 --> 00:25:31,280 And if if we were stopped by, the police would just say, look, 258 00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:36,170 actually we're helping the university and this is why we thought that would probably be okay. 259 00:25:36,180 --> 00:25:39,650 And actually it was never a problem. We just didn't know at the time. 260 00:25:40,130 --> 00:25:45,170 And did you need to recruit more people or did you have enough in your team? So we recruited a couple of people. 261 00:25:45,770 --> 00:25:49,040 We recruited a natural developer to do some work. 262 00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:58,099 He was with us from about six months and then we recruited a wonderful and Coakley, who essentially staffed the enquiries line. 263 00:25:58,100 --> 00:26:05,320 So we had a dedicated phone number and we had a dedicated email address and she was absolutely brilliant at keeping on top of that. 264 00:26:06,470 --> 00:26:11,090 It was also for people to book if they didn't have I.T. access or I.T. availability. 265 00:26:12,350 --> 00:26:12,829 So yes, 266 00:26:12,830 --> 00:26:21,260 that was the two really sort of administrative support in terms of just dealing with the enquiries and then a bit of extra development support, 267 00:26:21,260 --> 00:26:25,610 which we had for a few months. But otherwise, no, it was done from staff. 268 00:26:25,610 --> 00:26:33,439 But as I say, across the whole university, they weren't all my staff and we took a decision early on that we wouldn't re charge for staff. 269 00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:39,290 So we had a cost centre for expenses and I bought computers and swabs and God knows what was our button, 270 00:26:40,430 --> 00:26:43,759 but we didn't charge for each other's time across departments because we figured that was 271 00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:48,319 just not really going to make things any better and just make a load of extra admin, 272 00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:53,570 which wouldn't have much. But it has formed some really good relationships. 273 00:26:54,230 --> 00:26:58,460 And, and of course those relationships endure after after the events, and that's good. 274 00:26:58,730 --> 00:27:06,230 And thus there are some Vice-Chancellor's awards happening next month and one of them is about professional services, 275 00:27:06,230 --> 00:27:09,240 people working together across departments. So one. 276 00:27:09,410 --> 00:27:15,110 So I nominated the whole team that we're working with and we have been shortlisted, so we're going to the awards ceremony next month. 277 00:27:15,110 --> 00:27:23,509 So fingers crossed on the 21st of March. And it's that level of cross departmental and cross divisional collaboration unusual 278 00:27:23,510 --> 00:27:30,740 compared with what I'm probably I think we saw a step change in the level of it. 279 00:27:31,490 --> 00:27:38,960 I think in some ways all being stuck at home made it a much more level playing field because, you know, 280 00:27:39,210 --> 00:27:44,810 if, if we want something from mistakes and we go in their building, it's very much come to home terms. 281 00:27:44,810 --> 00:27:50,270 And likewise, if a child come to us, you know, it's the right place. 282 00:27:50,270 --> 00:27:55,339 But if you're all just actually sitting on a team school and you remember when it started, 283 00:27:55,340 --> 00:27:59,720 you could you could only see four people on the screen in the team school. It really it really moved on. 284 00:28:00,260 --> 00:28:09,080 I think that made us gel as teams in a different way to how teams gelled before by being in the same room and, 285 00:28:09,830 --> 00:28:12,560 you know, standing by the water cooler, having coffee together, that sort of thing. 286 00:28:13,110 --> 00:28:18,019 We had to learn new ways to be teams and and it always kind of cuts across. 287 00:28:18,020 --> 00:28:21,980 You know, you've got your departments in professional services going one way. 288 00:28:23,060 --> 00:28:29,060 You cut across them all to make teams that are across them all. And it's a bit like the way academics work in the university. 289 00:28:29,060 --> 00:28:35,270 They grouped by subject in their departments and. Faculties and then the group buy college in a completely orthogonal way, don't they? 290 00:28:35,470 --> 00:28:39,220 But it was a bit like that with with the COVID response as well, I think. 291 00:28:39,250 --> 00:28:45,070 Mm hmm. And were you also interacting with people in your job in other universities? 292 00:28:45,910 --> 00:28:50,400 Yes. So I was organising it. 293 00:28:50,410 --> 00:29:01,390 I'm. There was a weekly zoom straight teams meeting organised by I. 294 00:29:01,510 --> 00:29:08,830 It was like this for education, I think actually, because it was about the schools and universities response. 295 00:29:09,430 --> 00:29:14,259 So yes, there was a weekly meeting where there would be presentations from the government about what was happening, 296 00:29:14,260 --> 00:29:19,510 what was coming and so on, and then Q&A from people in similar roles around the UK. 297 00:29:19,510 --> 00:29:25,600 So yes, very much so. That was that was kind of the meeting not to miss each week because that's where you found out everything. 298 00:29:27,100 --> 00:29:27,669 So that was good. 299 00:29:27,670 --> 00:29:34,930 And then, yes, my counterparts in Cambridge, we had a few conversations about how we'd organise things and Cambridge took an interesting approach. 300 00:29:34,930 --> 00:29:42,760 They did pool testing. So you take a household full of students, you get them all to 12 and you throw themselves all in together and just do one test. 301 00:29:43,300 --> 00:29:48,700 And then if it's negative, know I found it. Obviously if it's positive, then you have to do the separate swabs. 302 00:29:49,900 --> 00:29:52,480 And that was an approach that I did. 303 00:29:52,660 --> 00:29:59,530 And, you know, we kind of confidentially shared stories of outbreaks and what we might have done differently to stop those things happening. 304 00:29:59,530 --> 00:30:04,870 But no, it was it was it was a good spirit of cooperation actually, which was nice to see. 305 00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:14,290 Mhm. Yes. And I know it must have been I mean essentially it in the with the, the early alert service you were, 306 00:30:14,290 --> 00:30:20,080 you were dealing with people and people's problems rather than I mean sorry I'm putting this wrongly, 307 00:30:20,290 --> 00:30:24,850 I'm not trying to say that when you're supplying somebody with a laptop that isn't solving a person's problem. 308 00:30:25,030 --> 00:30:28,810 But, but it's about human behaviour isn't it. Yes indeed. 309 00:30:29,020 --> 00:30:33,969 They and the operation. Yeah. And we had weekly meetings for the spokesman for the college folk. 310 00:30:33,970 --> 00:30:41,010 Amongst the problem folk that I would attend in the medical leads would attend and in fact the insurmountable 311 00:30:41,020 --> 00:30:47,020 ones were led by the safety office for the university and the college women's by one of the domestic versus. 312 00:30:47,020 --> 00:30:49,510 She sort of took the lead role and that was good. 313 00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:55,930 But it was I think key to the success was lots of keeping talking to each other and being aware of what was going on. 314 00:30:55,960 --> 00:31:00,700 And of course, a very strong shared sense of purpose that you don't always get it in projects. 315 00:31:00,700 --> 00:31:05,889 But you know, when when the clear purpose is to keep the university running as safely and as effectively as possible, 316 00:31:05,890 --> 00:31:12,730 that's something that's pretty easy to comprehend. And nobody at any point in this project said, That's not my job. 317 00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:18,719 Everybody just got in there and did it as a as a slide in my slide pack. 318 00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:22,090 So says, Yeah, so all about the people. 319 00:31:22,630 --> 00:31:32,740 So Chris Price was kind of the sponsor of it. And then we had operations director Sergio Ramos and only then me clinical director David Manson. 320 00:31:32,740 --> 00:31:37,050 Chris when I was both retired and medics. 321 00:31:37,060 --> 00:31:44,020 Chris come on and says, you don't know. He, I mentioned Brendan Donnelly, our business analysis analyst sorry. 322 00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:48,700 And then we had people coding. So that was Peter is one of my deputies. 323 00:31:48,700 --> 00:31:56,439 He leads our systems and networks team. We had Christopher Causer from central I.t who's also a bit of a demon programmer and then a contractor, 324 00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:58,630 John, who came and joined us from out six months. 325 00:31:59,920 --> 00:32:07,810 We had to have network experts, including from MSD and I c to set networks up in the parts, but also from RC services to get network to the parts. 326 00:32:08,310 --> 00:32:14,889 And we had stuff going in the ground from a cliff observatory course and they were, you know, the pods were essentially for togetherness. 327 00:32:14,890 --> 00:32:16,210 Were they? They were, yes. Yes. 328 00:32:16,270 --> 00:32:22,790 Mean they were they were quite high class force accountants and they had to have quite advanced heating and ventilation systems, let's say. 329 00:32:22,870 --> 00:32:26,559 Yes, they were porter cabins and they have clear routes through them. 330 00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:30,520 So people didn't pass each other on the lane on the way out. But yes, that worked. 331 00:32:30,820 --> 00:32:35,530 And we had people from lunch services doing testing the enquiry line in email. 332 00:32:35,530 --> 00:32:39,459 I've mentioned our website design and the noisy stuff. 333 00:32:39,460 --> 00:32:44,470 So the nurses, the spokes, I mentioned, the results Liaison Team Estates, Safety Office, 334 00:32:44,860 --> 00:32:48,230 Data Protection Office were very helpful because there were lots of questions that came up. 335 00:32:48,260 --> 00:32:53,680 The legal services in terms of contracts, because there's all sorts of things about, you know, 336 00:32:53,680 --> 00:33:00,549 are you a health care provider or are you a test provider and does the CTC need to get involved and all that sort of thing. 337 00:33:00,550 --> 00:33:08,410 So there was a lot to navigate to actually do this in a safe and lawful way and completely different from everything you've done before. 338 00:33:08,470 --> 00:33:12,190 Yes. Yes, yes, Yes, indeed. Mm hmm. 339 00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:24,340 And what are you doing now? Okay, so we're kind of back back to normal, as it were, when I started as director of Amnesty Authority. 340 00:33:24,730 --> 00:33:29,230 I knew that I was joining a department with many people who'd been here for 20 years or so. 341 00:33:30,330 --> 00:33:34,989 And so I've lost about four or five people since then, but only to retirement. 342 00:33:34,990 --> 00:33:37,930 Nobody has left. And for them to retire. So that that's quite good. 343 00:33:39,100 --> 00:33:44,110 So that's meant I've done a lot of recruiting and I've put some structural funds there. 344 00:33:44,110 --> 00:33:45,999 Well, there wasn't any structure when I started. 345 00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:52,140 So we have four teams now, the technical team and then the three customer support teams, one on the site, one an older one on. 346 00:33:52,190 --> 00:33:52,640 The city. 347 00:33:53,360 --> 00:34:02,180 So the structure, this line management, regular staff meetings, making sure we're represented appropriately on university committees that touch i.t. 348 00:34:03,770 --> 00:34:09,290 We're building on a strategy for the whole division with the amnesty committee at the moment. 349 00:34:09,380 --> 00:34:12,540 So, yes, it just sort of goes on and on really. 350 00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:17,180 And technology refers to the technology we use to provide, file and print across the division. 351 00:34:18,020 --> 00:34:24,409 It's quite a legacy now. I mean, it was very good in the time and it's finally I helped the previous head of systems and 352 00:34:24,410 --> 00:34:28,340 networks build it in the early nineties when I was in my first job and he was very near here. 353 00:34:28,340 --> 00:34:36,450 He just retired the ends November 22. So yeah, I'm very much overseeing a generation change and getting the next generation of people in. 354 00:34:36,470 --> 00:34:44,930 So yes, I feel like in my time here I will go from being one of the younger members of staff to one of the older members of staff by the time I leave. 355 00:34:45,590 --> 00:34:48,950 And so that's a it's interesting. 356 00:34:48,950 --> 00:34:53,990 I mean, it's a big responsibility, but and recruitment is not terribly easy at the moment. 357 00:34:54,890 --> 00:35:00,320 We have a bit of a skills shortage, I think, in the UK and of course people from the EU, 358 00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:03,920 it's much harder for them to come and work here now and much more expensive to get visas. 359 00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:10,970 So that has rather cut our pool of it. 10% of my workforce are settled status Europeans and they won't be getting any more of those. 360 00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:20,020 So it's not ideal and there are other bits of the IT sector, the private companies that presumably can pay an awful lot. 361 00:35:20,030 --> 00:35:26,390 Well, yes, I think institution can. Yes. Well, there we are starting to see a bit of a breakdown of that. 362 00:35:26,420 --> 00:35:35,959 Your friends, as soon as the Silicon Valley is starting to cut down a bit on staff and Elon Musk is firing people from Twitter and so on. 363 00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:38,990 So with a bit of luck in the wind in the right direction, 364 00:35:38,990 --> 00:35:42,170 I hope we can catch some of those people because they're generally pretty bright and pretty good. 365 00:35:44,390 --> 00:35:53,090 But yeah, I feel like I'm I'm in more of a condition steering the ship on a steady course now rather than trying to avoid I suppose around us. 366 00:35:54,410 --> 00:35:58,639 Well that's come now to to a bit about what it what it was like for you. 367 00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:04,940 I mean the first question I'm asking everybody is how threatened did you feel by the possibility of getting infected yourself? 368 00:36:12,460 --> 00:36:13,840 I think not hugely. 369 00:36:14,650 --> 00:36:26,120 And, you know, we we've got some of the world's leading medics here who understood COVID the threat sooner than most people in the world. 370 00:36:26,470 --> 00:36:31,990 So in a sense, we were a bit isolated from the hype because we knew what was really what wasn't. 371 00:36:33,070 --> 00:36:41,520 And personally, you know, I was I was in my forties at the time, generally healthy, don't generally get ill with things. 372 00:36:41,530 --> 00:36:49,680 And I think I took the view that, you know, I won't be reckless, but we have to get on with doing what we're doing and I think we all did that really. 373 00:36:50,530 --> 00:36:58,380 Some have different attitudes to risk, but I think we you know, we kept talking with the lead medics and say, look, how risky is this? 374 00:36:58,390 --> 00:37:02,170 Do you think we can do this? Does it balance the need for it to be done? 375 00:37:02,770 --> 00:37:09,009 So none of us got it early. I mean, we've all had it now because, as you said, vaccinations don't stop you getting it. 376 00:37:09,010 --> 00:37:14,110 But I had it twice in 2022. The first time was three days of a couple of sniffles. 377 00:37:14,110 --> 00:37:19,870 And the second time I didn't even notice and think because I did the tests and I was I was going to sing with some of the elderly, vulnerable people. 378 00:37:19,870 --> 00:37:25,030 So a lot of their testing that it wasn't that messed up the whole of the next week at work, of course, so they couldn't come in. 379 00:37:28,330 --> 00:37:35,830 But now I think and there's images out this will stick with us, I'm sure, from sort of January, February 2020. 380 00:37:38,290 --> 00:37:47,259 I don't think we were ever thinking that was happening here. And it got a bit it got a bit difficult, didn't it, in sort of March and April time. 381 00:37:47,260 --> 00:37:51,390 But but then it eased off and. 382 00:37:52,210 --> 00:37:55,750 And what about working hours? I mean, were you working much longer hours than you normally would? 383 00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,800 Yes. Well, it's hard to gauge when you're at home, isn't it, Because everything just sort of blurs into one. 384 00:38:01,810 --> 00:38:09,220 I mean, we were producing daily statistics and daily reports for the senior officers of the university, so I could keep up with what was going on. 385 00:38:09,820 --> 00:38:14,170 And yeah, I, I said to somebody once, I've never worked so hard, 386 00:38:14,170 --> 00:38:18,670 but I've never been to the office so little, you know, I guess it was that sort of thing. 387 00:38:18,670 --> 00:38:23,710 So, yes, I probably was doing more hours. I tried to make a point of having an end of day. 388 00:38:23,950 --> 00:38:27,670 This when all you've got to do is walk out of one room to another at home. 389 00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:35,079 It's it's hard for that to feel like at the end of the day. So I've heard actually he's into him while swimming and he got me into it as well. 390 00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:40,150 So with, you know, we've arranged to meet at five or 6:00 or something and just got to swim for an hour. 391 00:38:40,210 --> 00:38:46,960 And that was a good way to make a difference between work day and evening, even there in the same place. 392 00:38:47,250 --> 00:38:51,730 Oh, no. That sounds like a very good way of retaining your sanity. 393 00:38:52,690 --> 00:38:59,200 Yes. Yes. Because it it did. Yes, it was a lot It was a lot to cope with. 394 00:38:59,230 --> 00:39:04,180 I mean, I don't think any of us felt that we were sort of falling apart, but we were very aware of the pressure. 395 00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:08,859 And, you know, there were there were hairy moments. 396 00:39:08,860 --> 00:39:11,950 We were dealing with this early alert system. We'd written. 397 00:39:11,950 --> 00:39:21,159 We were working with the microbiology lab in the hospital and the staff that managed their systems, and it worked pretty well most of the time. 398 00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:25,540 Sometimes they'd make changes, forgetting that that we were depending on the form. 399 00:39:25,540 --> 00:39:29,740 After that, they certainly suddenly say, Why is this not working? And that would be a stressful few hours. 400 00:39:30,490 --> 00:39:39,670 And there was one time where we we gave half a dozen people the right results, but for completely the wrong reasons. 401 00:39:39,670 --> 00:39:42,909 You know, it was a good job that they were the right results. 402 00:39:42,910 --> 00:39:47,920 But, you know, those things happen when when you're dealing with a an emergency. 403 00:39:49,630 --> 00:39:53,350 But do you think that the fact that you were working on something that was important and supporting all 404 00:39:53,350 --> 00:39:58,209 these teams of people who were doing really important stuff helped to support your own sense of well-being? 405 00:39:58,210 --> 00:40:00,460 Yes, I'm it's somebody who was just stuck at home not knowing. 406 00:40:02,260 --> 00:40:06,700 Now, I'm sure that I'm sure having a sense of purpose is very good for mental wellbeing. 407 00:40:06,790 --> 00:40:09,730 And we certainly felt that we had a sense of purpose. 408 00:40:11,330 --> 00:40:20,600 And did you feel that the way things like social distancing and who could come to work and who couldn't handle anything was well managed? 409 00:40:22,190 --> 00:40:28,040 So it was different in different offices. I mean, being an I.T. provider, we kind of essential infrastructure. 410 00:40:28,070 --> 00:40:34,940 So we never really made firm plans about when people would come in and when people couldn't come in. 411 00:40:34,940 --> 00:40:42,079 We kept in touch electronically, and if we were coming in, we would say so it was to avoid other people coming in necessarily. 412 00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:46,250 But, you know, if a network's where it stops working, you've got to come and prod it. 413 00:40:46,250 --> 00:40:49,940 You can't just sit at home. You work or you've got to come on and replace it. 414 00:40:49,940 --> 00:40:58,040 Or if the vaccine trial, people suddenly want 30 laptops to give to trial staff to gather data, you've got to come in and do it. 415 00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:00,410 You can't you can't just do it remotely. 416 00:41:01,260 --> 00:41:11,210 Um, so I think I was quite proud of the way the most irritating just kind of self manage that really, and, and avoided putting each other at risk. 417 00:41:12,770 --> 00:41:15,980 Let's say we didn't have any transmission until much, much later. 418 00:41:16,700 --> 00:41:24,110 And so I think we probably all had it now. But, and we've got a couple who were more vulnerable than others, so we were a bit careful with this. 419 00:41:25,670 --> 00:41:29,390 And there's one member of staff who never had very good mobility. 420 00:41:30,460 --> 00:41:35,750 And when the when the pandemic started, started working exclusively at home, 421 00:41:36,650 --> 00:41:39,740 and he's actually still doing that, and that works really well for that individual. 422 00:41:41,180 --> 00:41:46,630 I think we learned something that I think and if you'd said to me four years ago, okay, can you have some staff who always work at home? 423 00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:49,790 I said, No, that wouldn't work. But actually it does with a bit of creativity. 424 00:41:50,510 --> 00:41:56,990 And that staff member comes in occasionally for all staff meetings. We used to have an old staff meeting every two months, always in person, 425 00:41:58,190 --> 00:42:03,799 and when the pandemic started, we switched to online every month and we're still meeting every month. 426 00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:09,370 But we've just started this year doing every third one in person with an extra half an hour on it and some. 427 00:42:09,590 --> 00:42:16,340 So that worked properly. So part of the shift to virtual working has remained as part of your normal practice? 428 00:42:16,550 --> 00:42:24,709 Yes, I think there are some meetings, the sort of transactional meetings with lots of people in them that actually work really well online. 429 00:42:24,710 --> 00:42:28,670 And in many ways they're a bit more efficient because people don't waffle on much like I'm doing now. 430 00:42:29,990 --> 00:42:32,969 But other meetings where you've got gritty things to deal with and you actually 431 00:42:32,970 --> 00:42:36,410 need to have discussion and you need to watch how people respond to each other, 432 00:42:36,830 --> 00:42:39,830 both physically as well as verbally. That's really hard online. 433 00:42:40,040 --> 00:42:47,060 So I think, you know, we have discovered a new way of doing things, but it's not the right new way to do everything. 434 00:42:47,390 --> 00:42:49,850 But it is really useful in some cases, certainly. 435 00:42:50,870 --> 00:42:57,440 And are there any other lessons from the pandemic that you will be able to take forward in in what you do? 436 00:43:00,590 --> 00:43:10,440 Hmm. I think for the last 20 or 30 years, we we've all been talking about the paperless office and going paperless. 437 00:43:11,310 --> 00:43:14,940 There was still an awful lot of paper the of the pandemic. We're much better at that now. 438 00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:21,140 There are several processes that were paper based at the start of 2020 that by necessity couldn't be. 439 00:43:21,990 --> 00:43:25,800 And we've actually just not taken them back to paper because that's nothing. 440 00:43:26,940 --> 00:43:36,720 So, yes, there has been some some learning, I think. I think we're coming to the eye on truck travel as well. 441 00:43:36,790 --> 00:43:40,550 You know, people come in two or three days a week and and that's good. 442 00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:44,850 So the system team particularly, they sometimes have to concentrate on a piece of work. 443 00:43:44,850 --> 00:43:51,780 And actually spending of that time to do that is really helpful for some of them. And nothing I learned, I think, is that situations are different. 444 00:43:53,250 --> 00:43:59,010 So two staff doing the same job. One of them is the one who's working permanently at home and it's working very well. 445 00:44:00,390 --> 00:44:07,620 The other one quite the opposite. Um, home situation, very different, making it very hard to work at home. 446 00:44:07,620 --> 00:44:10,710 I'm trying not to give too many details in front of people, 447 00:44:11,190 --> 00:44:18,900 and that person actually worked in the office throughout most of the lockdowns on their own and found that suited them very well. 448 00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:23,190 And it was good for us to have somebody to receive deliveries and issue things to people. 449 00:44:23,190 --> 00:44:26,460 So yeah, I think one size doesn't fit all. 450 00:44:26,490 --> 00:44:33,959 And you know, some people, people with children who they couldn't send to school for them working at home was a huge juggling act. 451 00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:38,010 So I have huge admiration for people who managed to homeschool their kids and work at the same time, 452 00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:44,510 because normally we wouldn't let somebody work at home so they could do the childcare. 453 00:44:44,550 --> 00:44:46,650 I mean, obviously if the child's ill, that's different. 454 00:44:46,650 --> 00:44:52,870 But as a routine, you know, I would say if you're home, you're either working or doing childcare, you can't be very strict. 455 00:44:53,460 --> 00:44:57,390 I think I've suffered considerably on that from having watched people cope so well. 456 00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:00,780 So people don't necessarily need to take leave. If they've got a sick child at home. 457 00:45:00,780 --> 00:45:06,120 They can we can trust them to just. Yeah, yeah. As I say, I wouldn't want it to go on for weeks or months. 458 00:45:06,300 --> 00:45:11,400 But yes, if the child can't go to school because they're unwell and they're in bed, most of them I'm sorry, 459 00:45:11,410 --> 00:45:15,000 have some of the staff member work at home, Why wouldn't they like to do it in the pandemic? 460 00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:21,420 They can do it now. Yeah. I mean, we can't all work at home all the time, but some of us can work at home some of the time. 461 00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:24,600 And if that makes life easier, that's a good thing. 462 00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:27,929 I think you know that life is hard in many ways. 463 00:45:27,930 --> 00:45:33,030 We have a cost of living crisis and we've got employment problems. 464 00:45:33,030 --> 00:45:39,840 You know, we don't want to make it less attractive to work here when we're struggling to get staff already we've got a hugely congested city. 465 00:45:40,230 --> 00:45:44,070 People are driving in or getting in. However, they do twice a week rather than five times a week. 466 00:45:44,070 --> 00:45:52,049 That's got to help too. So there are many things I think, that a bit of flexibility helps to enable and do. 467 00:45:52,050 --> 00:45:55,290 Yeah, I don't live with it, so I happen to be I follow you on Twitter. 468 00:45:55,290 --> 00:45:59,910 So I think once was where you campaign about about cycling in the city. 469 00:46:00,150 --> 00:46:03,930 Yes. Um, yeah, because I live in the city. 470 00:46:03,930 --> 00:46:08,610 Cycling around the city for me is a no brainer almost all of the time. 471 00:46:09,390 --> 00:46:14,670 I have a current sits in the garage most of the time and last Wednesday I had to drive down to Kent for a funeral. 472 00:46:14,670 --> 00:46:16,649 So I didn't drive. I wouldn't cycle around. 473 00:46:16,650 --> 00:46:26,130 But you know, for I'm southeast Oxford County sort of area to hear cycling reliably takes about 15 minutes walking, takes 40. 474 00:46:26,370 --> 00:46:30,780 Driving or hit in the bus can take an hour when people do otherwise. 475 00:46:32,940 --> 00:46:38,500 So yes, I wish the city was was safer for cycling and more more amenable for cycling. 476 00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:48,870 And that's this. I think we need to shift people's thinking from moving cars around to moving people around because it's not the same thing. 477 00:46:50,730 --> 00:46:56,520 But there is too much in people's minds that, no, I can't get anywhere unless I go in a car. 478 00:46:56,940 --> 00:47:00,900 But it's just not the case in a city like that. So no, I'm completely with you on that one. 479 00:47:01,290 --> 00:47:07,920 But of course, if everybody does, then everything else jams up. And I broke my ankle in May 21. 480 00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:15,209 Um, so it was quite immobile. I'm sitting with a chaplain in trauma, and he said, Oh, let's drive here. 481 00:47:15,210 --> 00:47:19,050 It was was really slow, so don't get the bus because that's really slow. 482 00:47:19,050 --> 00:47:25,410 And I said, Yeah, that's because everybody drives and gets on the bus as well. That's Oh yes. 483 00:47:25,410 --> 00:47:31,319 And actually I was cycling much quicker than I was walking after the ankle fracture because you don't have to balance on your ankle when you cycle. 484 00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:37,950 You're just pushing with it. It's the violence, it's the whole bit. So yeah, I mean, this site, it's quite good for cycling. 485 00:47:37,950 --> 00:47:39,420 There's quite a lot of cycle parking. 486 00:47:40,350 --> 00:47:45,509 And the nice thing is there are lots of routes into the site that you can use on foot or on a bike that you can't use in a car. 487 00:47:45,510 --> 00:47:47,210 If you drive in, you have to come from a headwind. 488 00:47:47,260 --> 00:47:54,030 Even if you cycle, you can come from Haddington or you can go out to the housing estates over there and out to the ring road quite easily. 489 00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:57,300 I take the most and cycle path across the university. 490 00:47:57,810 --> 00:48:00,930 Yes, that's lovely too. Yes. Yeah. Well, not dextrously. 491 00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:05,399 Yeah. Yes. And then you can go cross-country so you don't have to come up the main hospital road, 492 00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:09,000 you know, go across town field drives and come in office at the bus stops. 493 00:48:09,150 --> 00:48:14,970 Yes, that's what I do if I'm coming down to town and then from home I come up across one family. 494 00:48:15,690 --> 00:48:18,450 That's another campaign. I'd love to see a proper cycle path across one of them. 495 00:48:18,450 --> 00:48:25,110 And I think there is there is appetite for it in some quarters, but it's a tricky balance between the County Council, 496 00:48:25,380 --> 00:48:32,700 the Oxford Health NHS Trust, which owns the Meadow and University Estates, and I think Brooks as well, and the friends of the. 497 00:48:33,260 --> 00:48:40,040 Area. Pretty much everybody is in favour and the County Council has slightly cold feet 498 00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:44,540 about the risk of getting prosecuted for putting a cycle path on us on green, 499 00:48:46,370 --> 00:48:48,580 which is a debateable risk. 500 00:48:48,650 --> 00:48:57,559 I think it's I've suggested that the council's legal department have a formal swap of legal advice with Sustrans and actually have a look at it, 501 00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:01,430 so maybe it'll happen one day before I retire. We're just at the time here. 502 00:49:01,430 --> 00:49:10,969 We can just about cycle over it again now, but coming from pretty much anywhere south of Trinity Road and it cuts on all of Hilltop Road, 503 00:49:10,970 --> 00:49:14,500 that top bit of divinity road and all of one lane. 504 00:49:14,990 --> 00:49:18,139 And so it's a much better route and one fatality is better. 505 00:49:18,140 --> 00:49:21,770 That was my parking on it. But the junctions are still not much fun. 506 00:49:21,980 --> 00:49:25,969 And actually if you're coming to our old road campus, the metro brings you out in the right place. 507 00:49:25,970 --> 00:49:34,730 It brings you to south side of it rather than the north side of it. And I could talk about cycling, but just Yes, 508 00:49:35,420 --> 00:49:39,049 so I'm just I just throw this in because people have a tendency to wait till 509 00:49:39,050 --> 00:49:42,170 the end of the record and then tell me a really funny or interesting anecdote. 510 00:49:42,410 --> 00:49:51,260 So I just wanted to check whether there were any anecdotes or things that particularly stick in your mind from working through the pandemic, 511 00:49:51,260 --> 00:49:59,630 either on the Early Alert service or on providing the means that the research to get on with their work that sticks in your mind? 512 00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:04,520 Well, the thing I mentioned about how they were my blood run cold because I realised we'd given people the right results, 513 00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:08,540 particularly the wrong reasons. That was a bit of that's, you know, it was like. 514 00:50:10,550 --> 00:50:15,300 And you've probably heard this one before when you've been working with somebody online for months, 515 00:50:15,300 --> 00:50:19,570 if not years, and you meet them and they are completely different proportions to what you expect. 516 00:50:20,370 --> 00:50:26,470 But it's like I had no idea at all. I had no idea you were so short seller because everybody's just a head and shoulders screwed. 517 00:50:27,690 --> 00:50:31,920 So that was the thing. And it was really good to finally meet people, actually. 518 00:50:34,170 --> 00:50:36,389 And it's interesting how different people work differently. 519 00:50:36,390 --> 00:50:43,000 Some people are completely happy doing everything online, but something clearly that's out, I actually need to see people and be with them. 520 00:50:45,750 --> 00:50:50,579 And it just just has a bit of physical presence, you know, And it's it's really subtle things. 521 00:50:50,580 --> 00:50:57,479 He watch how they respond. And I mean, you're not touching them, but you're kind of feeling them as a presence. 522 00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:03,330 And I think that's quite important for for mental health, actually, for a lot of people from the office. 523 00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:11,999 Mm hmm. And is there looking back, I mean, is that anything in the light of your experience that you that makes you feel 524 00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:16,230 differently about your area of work or that you'd like to see change in the future? 525 00:51:19,860 --> 00:51:25,470 Well, I mean, I've talked about not forcing people to be in the office just for the sake of being in the office. 526 00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:32,280 I'm on my line. Always with the team was in towards the end when we were we had several guys that returned to on site working, 527 00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:36,359 didn't leave it and said, look, I'm not going to tell you where to work. 528 00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:38,310 What I care is that you get your work done. 529 00:51:39,300 --> 00:51:44,550 So know if it becomes apparent that the place you're choosing to work is getting in the way of getting your work done, 530 00:51:44,940 --> 00:51:49,340 then we'll have a grown up conversation about it. But otherwise, you know, do what works for you. 531 00:51:49,350 --> 00:51:55,649 And by and large, that's been fine. Actually, I have the luxury of a team of 20 or so. 532 00:51:55,650 --> 00:52:00,870 If I was the registrar and I had a team of 12,000, obviously I'd have to be much more prescriptive. 533 00:52:00,870 --> 00:52:10,079 So it is a good thing at the level of a kind of large cottage industry in the West where you can be quite flexible and formal about those things. 534 00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:15,090 I think that suits me quite well. But what you're doing there is actually giving some autonomy back. 535 00:52:15,140 --> 00:52:24,030 Yes. Staff member which is good for their mental health and yeah, and, and it is presumably quite rewarding for them. 536 00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:26,340 I mean it makes the job more rewarding. Yeah, Yeah. 537 00:52:26,490 --> 00:52:34,050 You know, I'm very clear as director, my job is to make sure people can do their jobs and through the managers nature of the job, something done. 538 00:52:34,410 --> 00:52:40,560 My job isn't necessarily to be friends with people, but I don't need to necessarily be enemies, even, you know, not less trust. 539 00:52:42,930 --> 00:52:51,990 And so, yeah, I mean, we have a fairly convivial atmosphere and I'm a celebrity, and I think that's what that's that's worth keeping. 540 00:52:52,230 --> 00:52:55,980 One of the things that we've done for many years is we have a thing called first Friday lunch. 541 00:52:55,980 --> 00:53:01,950 So we choose somewhere often a pub or a restaurant on the first Friday of each month and be rotate it round 542 00:53:01,950 --> 00:53:08,670 at three sort of centres of primacy and we all just get together and and have lunch and have a good chance. 543 00:53:08,760 --> 00:53:11,639 And I think we really missed that during the pandemic. 544 00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:20,610 We tried it online a couple of times, but yeah, I'm done with eating food or drinking drinks as, as an online activity. 545 00:53:20,610 --> 00:53:29,420 It just doesn't work. And we were part of a pub quiz team, the Mark Harris Company where I live. 546 00:53:29,670 --> 00:53:33,660 There were about four or five teams and we take it in turns to lead the quiz and the other teams that just take part. 547 00:53:34,110 --> 00:53:35,999 And we kept them off on Zoom for a few months. 548 00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:41,130 But it got to the point we were all just desperate for the quiz to finish so we could actually have a catch up with each other. 549 00:53:41,670 --> 00:53:47,700 This is silly and. Yes, I suppose. 550 00:53:47,700 --> 00:53:55,350 I suppose that's the thing about being flexible. I know I'm not assuming that people have to be anywhere in particular to do what they need to do. 551 00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:57,090 Great.