Hello, my name is Emma Dawkins, I’m Associate Director of Organisational Development at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust and I have the pleasure of being guest blogger this week.
It is mind-blowing to think that the national health service is made up of 1.3 million people, each individual, from all walks of life and with different experiences.
Together we make an incredible team, where those individualities, differences and experiences create a strong community.
Here at ELHT we strive to develop a sense of belonging and our ‘ELHT family’ is something we should be really proud of as it really does feel like we support each other to deliver safe, personal and effective care, regardless of the role each of us has.
Our ambition is to ensure that all our people have a positive experience at work. Despite best efforts, we know from feedback and data that we must do more to make sure this is the case for everyone and we are working hard to make this happen.
Trusts that are ‘outstanding’ pay attention to their culture and foster a compassionate, inclusive environment where everyone can contribute to continuous improvement, in partnership with patients, service users and families. This is where the NHS People Promise comes in.
The NHS People Promise is exactly what it says - a promise we must all make to each other, to work together to improve the experience of working in the NHS for everyone.
We share the NHS wide ambition to make the People Promise a reality by 2024, by working together to improve the experience at ELHT. This is reflected in our People Strategy and in the workforce priorities for the newly established Integrated Care Board (ICB).
Delivering this ambition has never been as important as it is right now as we recover from the pandemic and respond to the current cost of living crisis, as well as meeting the rising demands on our services. I joined the Trust in June this year and could immediately feel a warmth and genuine care from colleagues, even when they are working under pressure. There is also a maturity around innovation and continuous improvement and a commitment to living our values and behaviours, which fosters confidence and positivity. The devotion to delivering safe, personal and effective care is well and truly embedded in day to day activity which makes me feel proud to be part of the ELHT team.
I hear ELHT leaders at all levels commit to action to developing our culture so that the People Promise becomes a reality. This means that we are constantly looking at how we can do things better and demonstrating the People Promise in a number of ways, including:
We are compassionate and inclusive – we are committed to becoming more inclusive, where everyone feels that they belong and are safe from harm and discrimination. This includes becoming an anti-racist organisation and through events like our Big Conversations, Safe Spaces, History Months and Festival of Inclusion we want to have open conversations that create understanding and momentum for change.
This includes embedding our values and behaviours.
We are safe and healthy – we are developing our financial wellbeing and cost of living support offer. This includes affordable food, increased mileage rates and access to earned income through InstantPay. We are training up managers to have compassionate wellbeing conversations and have a ‘best in class’ Well Service.
We are always learning – we have a fantastic education and training offer but we know we need to do more including ensuring all colleagues have a meaningful appraisal conversation to explore wellbeing, ways of working, contribution and ambitions. We are developing an internal leadership and management development programme, to complement our existing activity, and we are always looking for ways to ensure fair access to career development, in line with our Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) and Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES) action plans.
We work flexibly – at ELHT, our ambitious agenda around flexible and agile working mirrors and yet goes beyond the expectations of the national NHS People Plan and includes flexibility by default for all roles, normalising conversations about flexible working and flexibility from day one.
These are just a few ways in which we are delivering on the NHS People Promise while we continue our journey of improvement. Over the coming months, colleagues will have the opportunity to have their say on how the organisation and its people are doing through our annual Staff Survey. Not only will it test our progress, it will help us identify where we need to do more – which is incredibly important. By working together in this way, we can make real change that supports our teams of today and colleagues of the future.
“Only by making Our People Promise a reality will the NHS become the best place to work for all – where we are part of one team that brings out the very best in each other.” NHS England.