We were writing the manual on how to navigate this…

I joined Gateshead Health in October 2020, some eight months into the pandemic and was thrown into the deep end of leading and supporting our people response, building on the work and immense efforts already in place whilst also bringing more structure and rhythm to our work.

I remember daily cell meetings; workforce cells, strategic cells, tactical cells, regional meetings, national meetings and more, all wrapped around individuals and teams working so incredibly hard to simply do the best they could to care for patients and each other.

There was fear, exhaustion, frustration and often tears, sometimes privately as we sat distanced and mask wearing across large offices, and sometimes spontaneously in corridors with the natural response to give a hug and human contact and reassurance ever the harder.

Days were full of endless Teams meetings with frequent "you're on mute", "I can't hear you", "is that an 'old' or (later replaced with the more polite) 'legacy' hand", which we still sometimes hear to date! Teams, zoom and face time calls became part of day-to-day life, both at work and in our home lives as technology brought us much needed connectivity with family and friends for Friday night quizzes, virtual Prosecco catch ups and Sunday morning virtual coffees.

We had insights into family lives as many of our corporate colleagues worked from home; children, dogs, cats, amazon deliveries and more became frequent interruptions to work conversations which we learned to treasure

Those of us at work stepped out of offices with trepidation at times, entering the kitchen individually, waiting politely to enter one by one. Lunch gatherings in The Hub were massively missed and work became very different for us all I'd like to think we got a lot 'right' but I know there were things we could have done better but I tell myself we were almost writing the manual on this as we went. Being kind to each other was essential, and still is

I had real frustration around being restricted entry from the main buildings and some of our clinical areas, very much wanting to be visible, to show support to all our colleagues working across clinical areas and eventually somewhat unlike me, broke the rule (!) and with another executive colleague (after fit testing) visited critical care and some other services. Having worked in the NHS for over 20 years, I always thought I had pretty good insight into services and a snippet of clinical life, but what I saw that day will stay with me for a long while yet.

The mandatory vaccination programme was brutal I have few words to reflect on that

Many say Covid is now 'over'; those of us working in the NHS know the reality is that it isn't really, we are all just learning to live with it We are adjusting to some kind of new 'normal' but I suspect our experiences both in and out of work, changed us all somewhat.

And finally, I remember 8PM on a Thursday evening standing outside with my neighbours, initially simply clapping and then by the end of the 10-week period, the claps had grown to the banging of pots and pans, drums, whistles and more. We were quite a sight along the road through our small village I was proud then and I will carry that pride with me for what we all did in such unprecedented times.

It took a whole team effort which few will ever fully truly understand.

Lisa Crichton-Jones Executive Director for People and Organisational Development