WE held our first leadership forum at the Trust this week where members of the Executive team gave an update on our plans for the future to senior members of staff in the organisation.
Myself and the Chairman, Pearse Butler, spoke about where we are currently as an organisation, where we are aiming to be and how we intend to get there while Peter Murphy, Head of Nursing, AHPs and Quality and Dr Jim Gardner, Medical Director, spoke about the Trust’s Quality Improvement Strategy and the work we are doing to reduce mortality rates.
The key themes we spoke about were around quality improvement, staff engagement and leadership development at all levels which if we get right will make a huge impact on the culture of the organisation.
We are committed to being a listening and learning Trust where everyone feels they have a part to play in making the improvements they feel are needed and a talk from guest speaker, Dr Nigel Acheson from the Care Quality Commission, backed that.
He about the need to continuously learn from where things didn’t go to plan and stressed the importance of kindness and compassion in relation to delivering the highest quality care, a topic that fitted in perfectly with the Just Culture and Compassionate Leadership themes I spoke about last week.
The day was ended with a funny, but extremely thought provoking talk, by comedian and writer Juliette Burton.
She spoke candidly about her own mental health experiences which included a vital message about how the kind and compassionate care she was given by NHS staff probably saved her life.
It was an excellent afternoon and we will shortly have a video available from the event that will be made available to all staff.
Time to Talk Day
IT has been a busy week all round and it was good to put our backing to two major campaigns this week.
On Tuesday the Trust marked World Cancer Day and it was great to see people get involved and sign pledges to say how they will support the work around cancer.
Thursday saw Time to Talk Day and I know there were a lot of events around the trust to promote the day which encouraged people to be more open around mental health – to check in on their friends and colleagues and to listen to them if they need some support.
This again fits in with the message of kindness that really fits in with the aims of the board in relation to the culture of the organisation. Chatting about mental health needn’t be awkward and you just never know when you might make a big difference to somebody’s life just by listening.
Thanks to those staff who organised the events to mark the day.