It won’t surprise you to hear that everyone at East Lancashire Hospitals is fairly used to having visitors and we pride ourselves on welcoming everyone equally, with the same amount of energy and warmth.
In the past couple of weeks, however, we have dialled up our hospitality and admittedly ‘rolled out the red carpet’ for some extra special people who have called into see a number of different teams and settings, for a whole range of reasons – all of which make me super proud.
The Trust is always very flattered when people from across NHS England, our regulatory bodies, the media or from neighbouring organisations within Pennine Lancashire or the Lancashire and South Cumbria system as a whole want to pop in and see what we’ve been doing.
We take it as an opportunity to celebrate our successes across the board, to recognise our teams and services and to share what is going well in our world. In addition, we love to hear from others about their own experiences and we’ll take whatever ideas and good practice gems we can get to ensure our services are continually improving.
To this very point, I know our Director of Improvement and Service Delivery Kate Atkinson welcomed system colleagues in the same field into Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital last week to share our approach to this important area and I was pleased to see their feedback on social media about how inspiring her update had been.
I know also that colleagues from NHS England visited Royal Blackburn last week too, to absorb how we effectively manage the flow of patients around our facilities, from attending urgent or emergency care onwards and, hopefully, returning home to recover. As is the way these days, they also posted some very positive compliments about what the team had gleaned from their visit – and in particular how impressed they were with the culture of the Trust.
They picked up what I have said many times before – that whilst it is tough going in the NHS at the moment with myriad challenges ahead, colleagues in ELHT are visibly ‘all in it together’ and operating effectively to deliver what we need to for our patients and their families as one.
You’ll remember that we also welcomed members from the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) to a session about ELHT last week, which included a focus on our performance and our culture, as well as our projections for activity next year.
I shared last week in the blog how the meeting had gone well and I have received further feedback from other members of the group since, saying they felt it had gone well and wanting to say how impressed they were with the Trust and what we had achieved.
One of our own Non-Executive Directors reflected in an email: “For me it highlighted just how successful ELHT has been in recent years. I want to congratulate you and the team on the work that has been done and all the work that is being done to ensure that we continue to offer high quality services, albeit at lower cost into the future.”
I could not have been more pleased by this. When things are difficult it’s easy to just keep going, running towards issues and trying to solve them. But what is clearly equally as important is to stop and recognise how far you have come too. It was quite the week, that’s for sure.
The theme continued on Monday, when the Trust welcomed the Chief Executive of the General Medical Council (GMC) Charlie Massey for the afternoon.
An influential figure, especially amongst our medical cadre, Charlie met with colleagues and heard about recent pressures experienced by the team, reflecting later how he was impressed with the range of health and well being initiatives available to provide support. He visited the spiritual centre and heard from individual doctors about how the GMC could respectfully improve processes and reduce bureaucracy, which I have no doubt will help shape thinking in the future.
This links me nicely to our therapy dogs who are handled by the spiritual care team and have been filmed by a crew from ITV Granada this week. The team visited the Trust to speak to colleagues, the hospital’s brilliant charity ELHT&Me and, of course, capture our fantastic young therapy dog in training Alfie the cockerpoo. The piece reminded me that our brilliant health and well being work was boosted by a large grant from NHS Charities Together and it would be remiss of me not to thank everyone who raises money for whichever NHS charity – it is always appreciated and extra funds always put to productive use.
If this point needed proving, I was fortunate to be invited by ELHT&Me to an event at the Primrose Unit at Burnley General Teaching Hospital where a group of people from across our community had raised enough money to fund a Paxman Cooling Scalp System, which will help patients undergoing oncology treatment minimise hair loss. I know the amount of energy and dedication that went into raising this amount of money and I want to say thank you, it will make such a huge difference to local people.
And on this note – whilst not a ‘visit’ perse – I do want to shout out the team from various parts of the Trust who have been working with colleagues from the North West Ambulance Service on a wide-reaching improvement programme centred on our urgent and emergency care pathway. Their work has been recognised with an award for improving ambulance handover times – which is an incredible achievement and deserving of a huge well done. The work to deliver this in the busiest A&E in the North West cannot be underestimated – thanks to everyone who contributed.
I ended the week, today, with an energising visit from Sir Julian Hartley – a long serving and well known member of the NHS family, who previously worked as a Trust Chief Executive in Lancashire before moving to a similar position in Leeds and now in the role of Chief Executive of NHS Providers, the membership organisation representing all acute hospital, mental health, community and ambulance trusts in the NHS.
It was great to see Julian, who I have worked with before, in his new capacity and I enjoyed the opportunity to show him around and introduce him to colleagues in a range of services and settings. Safe to say he was impressed by the people he met and the information he heard and saw and I am sure he will also take it away to consider as he develops his thinking in his new role.
The reason I update on all of these visits is not to brag but to make the clear connection between providing high quality services and being recognised for doing so.
It is important to me that patients – and their visitors – know that ELHT is an organisation that is very much recognised as ‘good’, where the team works hard and is supported in a positive culture. I believe this is fundamental to the local community feeling confident in our services, assured they can seek help when they need it and that treatment will be both high quality and delivered with expertise.
This is important because we are often looking after people who are already feeling vulnerable and put themselves or a dear loved one very much in our hands.
Being recognised in this way also helps us to attract and retain the very best staff, the best people it is possible to employ and the best colleagues you can count on at work. The team is the biggest factor in our success and you simply will never convince me otherwise.
There are more, but these are strong reasons why it’s important to not only be good but to be recognised as good too. It reminds everyone what we are here for and the value of high quality, safe services for our community.
Thank you to everyone who has been involved in supporting these visits, in preparing for them and, most importantly, to contributing to the success of the Trust each and every day, which makes people want to come here – for treatment, to work and to learn.
I will never tire of talking about the contribution this Trust makes to East Lancashire and beyond – or how proud I am to be its Chief Exec.
If you’re working this weekend – thank you again for picking up shifts and sacrificing your own time with your family and friends. If you’re off for part or all of the Bank Holiday weekend or, indeed, for half-term, enjoy yourself. You’ve earned it.
Have a great week,
Martin