News

Good morning Team Derian,

 

My apologies for the lack of a weekly update email last week, events overtook me… however this week its early and you’re in for a bumper edition !  Here we go…..

 

1. Footballers from Oldham FC came to visit the hospice last Friday along with club mascot Chaddy the owl to pay a special visit to “T” who is currently staying with us. The team will presented T with a special award – goal of the month – after he scored a blinder that made fans go wild when he was the team mascot last month.  It was a lovely afternoon.

 

2. We received an update from makers of The Little Things documentary this week when the team’s new editor Max came for a tour of the hospice. After shooting more than 200 hours of footage at the hospice over three months of the summer, the team is now busy editing and have given us a completion date of June in order to show the film at this summer’s film festivals where they hope it will get picked up by a distributor.

 

3. Our Chorley shop will be closing its doors to the public in March and we’re currently in talks to secure new town centre premises.  We will provide more information as it unfolds.

 

4. Our 2024/2025 budget has been drafted and was considered by Trustees at the Finance and Investment Sub Committee meeting on Friday.  The budget – which is a deficit budget – was approved at that stage and will now go to the full trustee meeting on the 29^th  Thanks to all departments – especially Finance – for their hard work in pulling it together.

 

5. There is no further information regarding statutory funding, we’re doing all we can to ensure we are at the table when decision are made across L&SC and GM.

 

6. Our care team recruitment drive continues at pace and we have now advertised the Child and Family Advocate and Engagement Lead. This brand new role will be crucial in ensuring our children and family’s views, wishes and feedback are right at the heart of all decision making at Derian.  If anyone is interested to find out more, feel free to speak to me about the role.

 

7. On Monday we enjoyed a visit from the wonderful Alfie Boe, this created a real positive joy around the hospice and I am delighted to share that Alfie is keen to be a Patron.  I missed his visit and so he’s got to come back!

 

8. Catherine’s interview with the Nursing Times has now been published, it’s a great article and the link is here… https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/community-news/hospice-nursing-a-privilege-and-honour-says-chief-nurse-13-02-2024/

 

9. We’ve been busy this week interviewing candidates for our new administrator role, we’re looking forward to welcoming someone to the team very soon.

 

• On Monday we had a large group of students from Uclan, Bolton and Edge Hill, we had a great morning and fabulous feedback from attendees.

 

• We have been shortlisted for an award through Nursing Times nomination, this is really great news although embargoed until today, well done all.

 

• The Quality, Safety and Improvement subcommittee of the board met earlier this week.  We were delighted to share with them a demo of Care Database, and we’re keen to develop the reporting requirements and dashboards that they require.  Also at the meeting we explored our current challenges regarding staffing levels and the processes we are using for determining the occupancy levels and the needs of the children that access the in house offer over the coming months.  A further discussion is taking place at the next trustee meeting.

 

• I’m gutted I missed sharing the love this week as we celebrated pancake day and valentines, well done everyone on having fun and creating a wonderful environment for all, the photos (and videos) are brilliant!

 

• Catherine has had some progressive meetings with ICB medicine management to discuss ACPs prescribing in the community, this is a great step forward.

 

• Continuing on our CQC readiness theme Anthony has scheduled a number of CQC briefings which he and Catherine will lead over the coming months, so watch out for the invite.

 

• We are welcoming Gillian Viragh on Monday.  Gillian is joining us as our new HR Administrator, so please say hello and give her a real warm Derian welcome.

 

• We’ve had some lovely feedback from sunflower “A”s family.  This is a really important part of our offer at Derian, thanks you to everyone who made their experience the best it possibly could be.

 

• Don’t forget, we have We Are Derian on Tuesday afternoon in the Seaside room, make sure you get along if you can, it’s your chance to chat openly about all things Derian.