Posted on: 22 July 2022
Hello, my name is Beverley.
It’s a pleasure to write my first leadership message for the Partnership to tell you a little bit about me, and my role working alongside colleagues for West Yorkshire communities.
I always wanted to be a nurse, I trained in both general and mental health nursing and have been a registered nurse for over 30 years. I have worked in several acute hospitals across the region, including being Chief Nurse at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and before this at York and Scarborough Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
I’m delighted to be taking up this unique opportunity and feel very proud to be part of a partnership working with colleagues across Bradford District and Craven, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield District to deliver health system transformation. It is an incredibly exciting challenge for me.
It probably goes without saying that nursing has been my lifelong profession, and I feel privileged to be one of over 500,000 nurses in the UK who work in many settings which include hospitals, health centres, nursing homes, hospices, communities, and education. Whilst many nurses work for the NHS, there are also huge numbers working in the social care sector and privately. In West Yorkshire there are over 10,000 NHS adult and community nurses. Over 800 of them work in GP surgeries and around 1,000 are employed by registered care homes. As well as this number 2,000 nurses work in mental health, with over 150 caring for people with learning disabilities. Approximately 1,200 are children nurses, with over 100 working in schools.
There are also over 1,000 (whole time equivalent) midwives working in West Yorkshire, supporting women and their families to have a healthy pregnancy and safe birth.
Nurses and midwives play a vital role in the delivery of care at all levels and whilst it is an incredibly rewarding career, the challenges in nursing and midwifery are common. I believe that these challenges can make nursing and midwifery two of the most demanding professions there are.
No matter where you chose to be a nurse or midwife, what we all have in common is the passion to do a great job and above all to keep people healthy and well. Caring for people when they are at their most vulnerable and offering support to them in a compassionate way are the foundation blocks of our profession.
During my career I have been lucky enough to work with, and to learn from, some of the best nurses and midwives and allied health professionals (AHP) in care. However, I recognise that all health and care disciplines need support to be able to continue to deliver the care that we would want to give.
As a Partnership our top priority is to ensure that we look after, value and develop teams and colleagues whilst we continue to grow the workforce of the future. Nurses, midwifes and AHP’s are no exception. This means ensuring we have enough staff with good wellbeing support, excellent training, and supervision in place. It also means making sure we have a diverse workforce reflective of the communities we serve and who understand the needs of all people.
We want to have a workforce that is looked after, feels valued and respected, as set out in our Partnership’s People Plan. We also want our teams to be supported by compassionate leaders so that people from all backgrounds can develop life-long careers within our system.
We are currently developing a strategy for the future workforce. In June 2021 we began an integrated rotational trainee nursing associate (TNA) pilot programme aimed at reducing the pressure on hospital emergency department admissions to maximise opportunities to escalate and refer patients to neighbouring services in a way that prevents them from becoming acutely unwell. Our TNA Programme continues to be expanded across West Yorkshire with take up of the apprenticeship with 455 TNAs currently on the programme. An additional 100 new trainees began their new roles in March 2022.
We are making the most of Health Education England investment to support the development of cancer nurse specialist and chemotherapy nurse development. This programme of work is in collaboration with Macmillan Cancer Support to grow and transform the cancer workforce, including newer cancer care coordinator and pathway navigator support roles as well as advancing clinical practice for nurse and Allied Health Professionals.
As well as this we are recruiting nurses internationally, which brings expertise into West Yorkshire. We are doing this by putting the nurse at the centre to ensure we only recruit from places where there is a supply above local need and that we support their journey from the moment they decide to come to the UK. This is from training and travel, into practice and further providing pastoral support and mentoring alongside practical help when settling into a new place of work. The existing community of over 2,000 international nurses in West Yorkshire is diverse, representing the people they serve, bringing knowledge and skills in the care of patients and vital to delivery of care.
Alongside the traditional recruitment campaigns that continue, we have also adopted solutions to raise awareness of the many roles that exist within the health and care sector. For example, in mental health we regularly hold virtual recruitment fairs, which have attracted over 400 attendees via a targeted social media campaign. This is not only good news for patients but great for the local economy with many people being recruited locally to work in their neighbourhoods and communities. Our local places are also running various outreach programmes within school, colleges, and other local community groups to raise awareness of the range of careers within health and care and targeting specific recruitment initiatives within communities which is also supporting social and economic development.
My work priorities sit within the clinical and professional directorate of the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB), working closely with Dr James Thomas, the ICB Medical Director. Together we cover many functions, including children and young people, the local maternity system programme, clinical leadership, quality of care, patient safety, personalised care, and the unpaid carers programme, to name a few.
Over the coming months my focus will be to work alongside colleagues from across the system to ensure we improve the quality and safety of care delivered across all sectors, whilst addressing the inequalities people face – this will be incredibly varied given our scope and scale.
I truly believe the teams within our system will continue to rise to the challenge, and I am very much looking forward to working with you all, irrespective of your role, to carry on making a positive difference to peoples’ lives and our communities.
Thank you for reading my first message to you all.
Have a good, safe weekend,
Beverley