Category Archives: CEO Message

Dear Derian House Colleagues,

It feels like February passed in the blink of an eye with multitudes of storms and the ever changing COVID situation, alongside this we have the sad situation in Eastern Europe. I am sure you join me in hoping the situation resolves itself in Ukraine and our thoughts go to the people of that country.

With all of this going on we are still committed to delivering the amazing Derian House care to our families and we continue to receive amazing feedback. Everyone across the charity has their part to play in ensuring we deliver that outstanding care, work in a great environment, support our finances and income, keep everyone safe and look after each other as one Derian Team.

As restrictions continue to ease outside of Derian it is important to remember that as a healthcare provider we are still maintaining our current procedures. We have received clear instructions from NHS Test and Trace to maintain our COVID-Secure, testing and visitor policies so please support us in this area. As I said in January we do continue to review these monthly at the Senior Management Team meeting and this approach will continue until the end of March when we will see what rules apply. I remain aware of the limited seating in Danni’s Diner and thank everyone for the continued support in maintaining the seating rules.

I intend to do the Keeping in Touch sessions face to face after the Trustees Board meeting at the end of March so for this month below are some February highlights  :-

• We have a number of new starters in February across many areas of Derian, check out the Intranet to see who they are and if you see them around the hospice please say hello.
• Family Support and Wellbeing continues to be vital as families cope with the ongoing pandemic and it is great to see lots of activities happening, on the last day of the month we also welcomed our new Counsellor, John to Derian.
• Within the Hospice occupancy keeps moving dynamically as we manage cancellation and rebooking’s, it is however great to see lots of children and young people (old and new) staying with us and receiving outstanding care from our amazing team.
• Our Derian at Home Team and ACP colleagues have been extremely busy in February with sadly a number of RIP’s and other challenging demands and I thank them for their resilience and professionalism.
• The facilities at Derian are large and complex to manage and maintain and the Housekeeping and Estates team have done a brilliant job to keeping everything looking amazing.
• Culture and Values sessions are still on our agenda and Lynn, Ben and I will be schedule 3-4 final sessions in March, if you haven’t been on one yet then watch this space for an invite.
• Finances are always challenging however, fundraising, marketing and communications teams beat our January budget figure so well done everyone. We have also had great news about an increase in our Children’s Hospice Grant for 2022/23 alongside some exciting applications for grants (more to come on that in the coming months)
• Events are back on schedule for 2022, take a look at our website for upcoming plans or speak to the Fundraising Team for more information.
• In 2022 the world of CCG’s (clinical commissioning groups) will be changing, this is a massive shake up of the system and Lynn and I are heavily involved in discussions across Lancashire, South Cumbria and Greater Manchester. We have quite a way to go but we are positive about the engagement so far and also pleased with the recognition of Derian House and the respect it has within the health and social care sector within the region.
• EMIS project is progressing, we have now served notice to Crosscare which will switch off in early June, any questions about this activity please speak to Ruth, Ben, Kirsty or Kelly.
• Keepsake Circle the bereaved family song writing scheme will continue in 2022, families have been contacted and we hope to allocate places at the beginning of March through to the end of 2023.
• Our shops continue to be the face of the charity on the high street with new stores in Accrington and Bury planned within the next few months. We have a new Manager and Assistant Manager in Preston from March and we wish them well. Our Derian Drivers have been doing a brilliant job keeping stock moving and every store is gearing for a busy Spring and Summer.

Around and About the Hospice (and beyond)

• Reflection Garden, a couple of final elements to be added with two canopies over benches and new pathway covering, the water features are working and once the planting matures it will be amazing.
• Woodland Suite, this facility is now re-open after being closed whilst we completed the Reflection Garden.
• Derian on Holiday, both sites re-opened in the middle of February with their first week being half-term and all 4 lodges full, I believe we have a few weeks left so please tell families if they haven’t already booked.
• Open Gardens, Our next National Garden Scheme Open Gardens will be on the 3^rd April 2022, this was extremely successful in 2021 so please share the date with any family and friends, tickets are available for the NGS website.
• Sensory Garden, The new sails are now installed and I am sure you agree look very colourful, we have made the garden usable again for the Spring and Summer with a full refurbishment happening from September, once we have the plans finally agreed we will share these with you.

As you can see we continue to be really busy.

Thank you all for your support and commitment and if you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask me, any member of the senior team or your line manager.

David

Dear Derian House Colleagues,

I hope my message finds everyone well, it really has been so nice to have some freedoms returned as we can start to meet friends and family and live a little more of a normal life. Clearly, we still have more hurdles to negotiate but hopefully we can continue to progress out of lockdowns, welcome more families to Derian House and re-introduce more services. It has been really nice to see the hospice getting busier and as we entered the next phase allowed staff from across the two building to visit each other whilst still meeting the COVID-Secure requirements.

We have been working on our new Strategic Aims which we hope will be signed off and approved at the next Board meeting with the Trustees on the 14^th June. Our Aims set the agenda for what we do across the hospice and how we develop and grow our services, the needs assessment I shared with you in my last update has influenced many aspects of the planning. We have very exciting times ahead as we continue to progress the work Derian House does across our geographical reach for those families who need us.

Our Open Garden event was a huge success with many people visiting our lovely grounds, the feedback was brilliant and thanks to Gareth and the Facilities Team alongside staff and volunteers for making it so successful. We have another event in early August when we will showcase the new greenhouse and garden pod, hopefully this will be a more open event allowing more people to learn about Derian House.

Work is well underway with the greenhouse and we expect full installation to be around the 14^th June, the works have also now commenced on the new garden pod in the wooded area. I am sure you will all agree these will be great additions to our gardens and will allow for more outdoor activities for everyone.

Our review of Culture and Values sessions concluded in May although Ben and I still need to present to our retail colleagues and we hope to get this in the diary very soon. We will be re-commencing sessions in late Summer or early Autumn to talk about the D.E.R.I.A.N as we enter year four of the culture and values, in the year four sessions we will visit the meaning of each value and how we continue to embed these in to Derian House.

Income Generation will set a lot of changes over the coming weeks as Kevin Bedford’s retirement has prompt changes to our senior management structure and also the team structures. I will be sending out an update to everyone very soon sharing what we have planned and how things will work. The world of fundraising has changed dramatically through the pandemic and we need to lead the way to drive the all-important income we need as a charity.

We have a lot of other things happening around commissioning, statutory funding, joint working and all of these raise our profile and allow us to reach more families, when I have more information to share I will add this to my monthly update.

Can I please remind everyone that data protection is vitally important and everyone’s responsibility no matter which area you work, please protect Derian House by ensuring you are up to date with all policies in this area and keep data secure

Hopefully after the 21^st June I can recommence my coffee and chat sessions where colleagues from across the hospice can meet with me and ask me anything – Jacquie will send invitations out when we can.

I hope you have fund this message useful, thank you to everyone for your continued hard work and keep safe,

David

Dear Derian House Colleagues,

Another month of lockdown has passed and it has been great to see the hospice busy in all areas, as we enter April we will start to see the gradual easing of lockdown restrictions which I am sure everyone is delighted about. It also allows us to review services and continue to expand what we can offer to families, I know everyone is working on their plans across all of our care teams and we will continue to get busier.

With the Easter weekend coming it is time to start thinking of Spring and hopefully warmer days and lighter nights, and this allows us to offer more activities outdoors. We are seeing more families requesting to use the garden for a visit and we will also be having a National Garden Scheme open day on the 9^th May where the public can come and visit Derian House’s gardens, this will raise our profile and the work we do.

Our shops will reopen on the 12^th April after being closed for over 3 months, we are sure they will be very busy so if you haven’t yet done so – why not have a spring clean and send retail some clothes, bric-a-brac or other items for us to sell.

Across all our non-clinical areas everyone has been working on new plans to increase the Derian profile and message to the wider community, we have a lot of plans and here are just a few things coming soon …

• Greenhouse works started with the tree felling (most had Ash die-back and needed to come down anyway), the base will be installed very soon and we still plan to have this completed by mid-June.
• Garden Pod to be used for counselling or other meetings, this will be built within the wooded area, we will have a date for this shortly.
• Memorial Fountain, we hope to have the initial plans which we will share with the bereaved parent group after Easter, once we have agreed the design we will share with everyone.
• New Laptop rollout has started, Sam and Jacquie will be in touch as we move through this activity.
• Coffee and Chat and Keeping in Touch meetings returning (safely) hopefully after 17^th May.
• Culture and Values journey continues, after the 12^th April anyone who had not attended the sessions in late 2020 will be invited to these sessions very soon.
• May will see our new campaign with a story focusing on Derian on Holiday and one of our families.

If you have not seen the March/April edition of Lancashire Life, there is a really nice 4 page article about Derian House with some lovely pictures.

I think nearly everyone has now had their second vaccination and of course all staff and eligible volunteers have been offered the jab. It is great to see such a huge uptake with over 90% of our staff now being vaccinated. I would repeat the advice we are receiving that we should still follow the advice to wear face masks, socially distances and regularly hand wash and of course we have our lateral flow testing in place as well.

Everyone has remained focused at this very challenging time, the Senior Team and I thank you all for your support and following the Derian Values – as one team we have done an exceptional job in keeping our hospice open and ready to support those who need us at this unprecedented time.

Thank You to everyone and keep safe

David

Dear Derian House Colleagues,

It is really hard to think that March will be here next week but at least that is closer to Spring, lighter evenings and hopefully better weather. Hopefully it sees the beginning of the journey out of the pandemic and although we have a little way to go at least there is a light at the end of what feels like a very long and unforgiving tunnel.

The work at Derian House has continued with the hospice getting busier and increasing amounts of respite care which is helping families cope at these unusual times. Alongside this our day care work is getting much busier and again this is providing the support and relief families need. The Derian at Home community team is growing as we increase our work to support more CYPs across a wider patch and especially in to Greater Manchester. We also said goodbye to our two long term children who we have successfully transferred to their permanent place of care, the feedback from everyone about the care and professionalism received from Derian House was overwhelming – thank you to everyone.

Exciting news that our ACPs qualified this month and we are continuing our focus on developing our people Charlotte our Assistant Practitioner has been awarded the Julie Atherton Scholarship this year to start her Nurse Associate course.

Our recent IPC audit was thorough and the feedback has been generally positive so thanks to everyone involved across the Care and Housekeeping team.

We have a lot happening with our buildings and gardens, some things you see and others are more discreet but I would like to thank everyone involved for their hard work.

As we plan for the coming months we are working on returning our furloughed colleagues when appropriate back to either the office or retail and this will happen in line with the government roadmap. In the meantime colleagues working from home  continue to focus on driving the Derian message either through Fundraising or Marketing, and please remember that every function of our charity has operated fully (with adaptations) throughout the pandemic. It has taken much effort to make this happen and thanks to everyone for their understanding and patience. It is a real team effort with Finance, Fundraising, Marketing & Comms and HR all supporting the wider hospice operations.

We have much to look forward to in 2021, not only a return to some normality whatever that may be but also new and innovative plans to continue our journey of improvement. I know you have seen these before but it is always worth remembering what is coming so below is a reminder ……….

• We will be working with CCG’s across Lancashire, South Cumbria and Greater Manchester to develop and increase our services to reach more families. We will use our recent Needs Assessment study to ensure we provide what families need and ensure we receive the financial support from statutory funding where needed – we have great plans and I am excited you will all be part of it.
• Vinten Place refurbishment is COMPLETE and looks great, hopefully later in the year everyone can take a look.
• Greenhouse works has started and we plan to have this completed by mid-June.
• Garden Pod to be used for counselling or other meetings, this will be built within the wooded area, we will have a date for this shortly.
• Sensory Garden, we will be adding a permanent sail canopy to provide shade on either hot or rainy days and we plan to add an art and craft table underneath making another brilliant area for our CYP.
• Memorial Fountain, bereaved family consultation has now happened and we have now added their ideas to the list which has been sent to the designer – more to come on this soon.
• New Laptop rollout in late March
• New Minibus arriving hopefully for early Spring
• EMIS project will be delivered.
• Coffee and Chat and Keeping in Touch meeting returning (safely) hopefully after 12^th April.
• Culture and Values journey continues, hopefully after the 12^th April.
• Strategic Aims are now in discussion with the Trustees to road map our next 3 years of developments.

We have the results of the January staff temperature check and Ben will be releasing the details out shortly after the Trustees Board Meeting which takes place on the 1^st March.

Finally, we should all start getting our second vaccine throughout March, I have I mine on the 22^nd and I believe everyone has a date given by LTH.

As always, a lot going on and I hope this information is useful, if you have any questions please contact me or any of the senior team directly or speak to your line manager.

Thank You to everyone for all your commitment and support – keep safe

David