D I A LO G U E
ave you had to offer care in a different ay during the pandemic? The hardest thing has been having to restrict visitors; normally we would welcome families in to spend time with their loved ones and that’s a very important part of the provision – often at the weekends the hospices would be really full with families visiting but we’ve had to restrict that right down. It’s very sad not being able to offer the same kind of environment for families. A bit of reassurance and human contact is what is needed and that’s been a sad loss for both staff and patients.
trustees, who live both in and out of county, would normally have their individual roles – perhaps on an income generation committee or a clinical committee – and would only go to certain meetings. As we now meet remotely, we can all easily come together and we’ve had full attendance in meetings; you could say that the governance has improved because of this. Trustees, executives and management have become more aware of what’s going on across the board and are able to feel the pulse of the organisation as we go through this crisis. This is something we are interested in capturing and keeping.
Our clinical senior management team have been outstanding in ensuring that they have had all the PPE they needed and everything on that side has gone very smoothly. The staff have worked really hard not only on the wards but also in their private lives to keep themselves safe. That has been a big message from myself and the management team and it’s been to their credit. Self-imposed restrictions have been pretty relentless. We are currently part of the vaccination programme and that gives us hope.
It’s not just our trustees that have been affected. Working from home has raised the profile of the culture of presenteeism. Our front line staff – doctors, nurses, health care assistants, caterers, housekeepers etc – they absolutely have to be in the hospices. But we have other roles that can be done from home and I’ve been talking to a lot to our staff about presenteeism; the presumption that if you’re not visible, you’re not working. That is certainly not the case and we need to move away from that. Our aim is to support those who can and want to work from home in the future. It might be a blend, and I’m very openminded about that. uality of life is important and that’s a part of the hospice ethos as well as living in Cornwall and it’s important not to lose sight of that.
Are there learnings you will take forward rom this di cult time I believe the future of our fundraising will be a blended programme to include virtual events but combined with those large, massparticipation events that people really miss. We will take the experience we have had from operating under Covid restrictions to achieve a balance between the two. There have also been learnings when it comes to our governance. We have a very active Board of Trustees who are very caring and passionate about their roles. We normally meet face to face but we’ve embraced technology and now we meet actually more regularly via video link. What’s been interesting is that
How would you sum up? What’s been most important for me, has been to work towards the hospices being sustainable for another 0 years and that’s the key goal for me. I’m not at retirement yet, but when I am I want to leave the charity in a successful and a financially stable condition so that we can carry on caring for patients for as long as we’re needed. cornwallhospicecare co u
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