News

Hi everyone, here’s another round up from me to keep you all looped in… it’s a little early as I am not around on Friday

1. The trustees have their final meeting today of 2023.  We have decided to start all Trustee meetings with the opportunity for our families to share their experiences directly with the Trustees.  This week Holly, Alfie’s Mum, will talk about the support he and his family received at Derian.  It’s important that trustees are able to meet families directly and ask about the services received, and whether families feel that their experience was positive and where they feel we could do more or provide different services.  This helps trustees be assured and enables us to ensure we provide services that families need and want.  It’s also a key part of our family engagement work and makes sure that families are at the heart of everything that we do.
2. Catherine and I had our 6 monthly engagement call with our Relationship Manager at CQC this week.  This was a hugely positive meeting, Karen (yes another one…) has been our contact at CQC for over 2 years and had visited Lynn and I earlier this year.  However given the changes at CQC, her role will be changing and we will be allocated a new Relationship Manager who we will meet in around 6 months time.  During our call with Karen she advised that there had been an anonymous whistle blow in November from an employee at Derian.  The concerns raised were not within the remit for CQC to investigate as they were not in relation to patient safety, but they wanted to share with us the detail of the case so that we could explore ourselves.  As you know I (and the wider Leadership team) are very keen to develop an open and transparent culture at Derian and on that basis I am very happy to share a brief summary of the nature of the concerns that were raised as part of the whistle blow.  The concerns raised can be described in two themes.  The first is around culture, the whistle blower described a culture that had been around for a number of years that was negative and bullying, one which undervalued staff.  The second theme was in relation to the merger of the community and in house team and the development of a one team approach through the integrated care team.  Catherine and I talked Karen through the changes we are currently working through, and the ambitions for the future, which were extremely well received.  CQC are very impressed with our strategic plan and the innovative way we want to grow our services and develop our workforce across integrated care.  We all acknowledged that change is difficult for all staff (Karen herself referred to how the culture at CQC had been impacted recently as they are undergoing lots of change which impacts on the workforce).  We also took the opportunity to share with Karen our move to Care Database, our work on the say my child’s name campaign and the little things documentary and a whole host of other things from across the organisation.  Catherine explained how we were looking to launch a huge recruitment campaign in the new year, including binging a wider nursing experience to the team, again Karen was very impressed.  I guess the main point of reflection here for me is to remember that we are all on this journey together, and I’d like to encourage all staff to talk to the leadership team if you have any concerns about our direction of travel, we are here to listen.
3. Josie Hauxwell had her interview with UCLAN this week as part of her application for the for the Nurse Associate Apprenticeship course that will start in March 2024.  I am delighted to share that Josie passed with flying colours. The course tutor was very impressed said that the 6 C’s were flowing out of Josie.  She further commented that Josie is an asset to Derian House and that she will do really well as a Nurse Associate and beyond.  Great news and absolutely well done Josie!
4. Catherine, the ACPs and I met with the GPs on Wednesday.  The GPs are a key part of our medical model and it’s important that they are fully involved in the co-design of what that looks like in the future.  We’re looking forward to building on the relationship with them and making them feel part of the Derian team.
5. Finally, I’d like to say an early HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the following member of our team who celebrates (or commiseratesJ) her birthday next week…… Lynn Taylor !

As always, have a wonderful weekend and keep being brilliant !