Connect - Summer 2017

Your Magazine, Your Hospitals

News • Awards • Health & Wellbeing • Events • Information • and much more...

Rosemere celebrates its 20th anniversary in style Communications

Rosemere 20th anniversary appeal gets underway!

Research The Foundation aims to help deliver tomorrow’s treatment today for the people of Lancashire and South Cumbria by helping provide state of the art facilities and additional support for patients involved in cancer clinical trials.

Biggest ever appeal launch On the 1st of March, the Rosemere Cancer Foundation celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Cancer Centre by launching its biggest ever appeal to fund three innovative projects that will help us to deliver world-class cancer treatment for our patients.

New Chemo Ward Rosemere is helping us to ensure that our dedicated cancer ward is fit for the future, providing appropriate and comfortable facilities not only for patients, but for their families too.

The new cancer robot Rosemere Cancer Foundation is helping to rase money so we can provide the very latest robotic surgical equipment – only the 3rd of its kind in the UK – to give our specialist pelvic surgical team the best tools possible to treat gynaecological, colo-rectal and upper gastro-intestinal cancer patients.

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Ribblesdale Cake Sale Ribblesdale staff joined in with their own fundraising efforts by holding a Cake Sale which raised a spectacular £310 – not surprising given the standard of baking and cake decoration. Move over Mary Berry!

Research Spinathon Research started the fundraising ball rolling for their project too by celebrating International Clinical Trials Day with a Spinathon on static bikes positioned around the Trust and a cake sale. Thanks to the many people who had a go and did their bit to help raise £356!

Walk in the Dark To do all this, Rosemere needs to raise £1.5 million and teams across our organisation have been doing their bit to help them reach that target!

Many staff took part in Rosemere’s biggest Walk in the Dark yet in April, trekking the 11 miles from Chorley hospital to Preston hospital, where bacon butties and certificates awaited them. The pain was well worth it as the event looks set to raise £50,000 towards the Appeal!

Gym Triathon Challenges are becoming a bit of a theme you’re a competitive lot! In March Consultant Oncologist, Stephen Kennedy, Senior Healthcare Assistant, Heather Dobson, and CNSs, Alex Robson and Jackie Tate, completed a gym triathlon at Fulwood Leisure Centre to raise a fantastic £751.

Get involved Well done!

Finally, well done to Radiotherapy Assistant, Carol Bartlett, who completed a very emotional Manchester 10k only days after the bomb that killed so many at Manchester Arena. Centre to raise a fantastic £751.

So far the Appeal has raised over £200,000 but there is still a long way to go and the Rosemere Cancer Foundation needs your support to reach its target. Visit their website at www.rosemere. org.uk for a full list of events you can get involved with, including a Walk the Lights along Blackpool Promenade in October.

Or why not organise your own event? The Rosemere team will give you all the help and support you need.

Get in touch today and help YOUR Cancer Centre deliver world class treatment to YOUR patients!

Connect Magazine Summer 2017

World Prematurity Day Staff in our neonatal unit have been celebrating World Prematurity Day every year for a while now, but for the most recent one, they decided to go all out. Decorations filled the corridors, all in the event’s signature purple, and a fantastic cake sale took centre stage near the entrance to the unit. Coming in to help out on their day off, Sisters Andrea and Becky, manned the cake sale from 10am onwards, selling a range of yummy cakes that staff had either baked themselves or chipped in to buy. Making the day extra special, previous patients and visitors on the unit paid a visit to show their support and see staff who played an important role in their new arrival’s crucial first days.

Towards the end of the event, Sharon and Peter Lee came by to hand over a very kind donation of £150 to our neonatal team, in recognition of their life-saving efforts in January, 2016. Just as she reached the seven month mark in her pregnancy, Sharon went into labour with her twin daughters,

Grace and Abigail. Unfortunately, her local hospital in Tameside didn’t have the specialist care available for Sharon and her babies, so she had to endure an hour and a half long ambulance journey to get to our incredible team here at Preston.

Born on 28th January, Grace and Abigail weighed only 2lbs and spent five weeks at Preston, before being moved closer to home- Grace was taken to Tameside hospital and Abigail was taken to Royal Oldham hospital. Sadly, Abigail lost her fight during her time at Royal Oldham; however, Grace is now thriving at a year old, in testament to the excellent care of our staff and in memory of her sister. Peter Lee, grandfather of Grace and Abigail, has been on a charity crusade ever since with the help of a bereavement support group called Finding Rainbows. They frequently sing at local venues at local venues to raise money for us and the other hospitals involved in his family’s care.

On her first visit back to the unit, Sharon said: “I can’t thank everyone in Preston’s neonatal unit enough. Without them, my babies wouldn’t have been given the fighting chance that they had and Grace wouldn’t be here with us now.

My father and I wanted to recognise the staff for their efforts and will always be grateful for the compassion and care they showed- they’re a real credit to your hospitals.”

Ward 24: fantastic fundraisers

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We’d like to wish the staff on Ward 24 at Preston a huge congratulations and thank you for their efforts in raising over £5000 for a new EGC machine! They took part in a 10k run; 10 members of staff completed a colour run; and they even held monthly bake sales so that they’d reach their target.

the red to react symbol for the pressure sores on heels, and their weigh days. This has reduced the overall signage around the bed area. The patient safety team are aware of these communication boards and are looking into introducing them into the rest of the wards.

They have also introduced a communication board behind every patient bed with the necessary information needed for the safety of their patients; including the consultant and named nurse, their diet and fluids, mobility, if they are at a high risk of falls,

Well done Ward 24!

Meeting the Clinical Coding team at Preston

Hostile Environment Surgical Training course One of our Emergency Medicine consultants, Dr Ayman Jundi, has helped to run a Hostile Environment Surgical Training Course (HEST) at Sanko University in Gaziantep, Turkey.

Primarily funding the course with his charity, Syria Relief, Dr Jundi worked in conjunction with a world-leading ‘Conflict Zone Surgeon’ to develop the HEST programme. Members from the Syrian British Medical Society, the David Nott Foundation, and the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organisations were also on hand to provide medical expertise and logistical support.

The course itself is designed to offer training to doctors working in harsh environments, where conditions for clinical care are of a lower standard , supplies of medical equipment are uncertain, and the number of casualties often exceeds the capacity of health care facilities. As the course is aimed at healthcare professionals working in disaster or conflict zones, it teaches the principles of ‘damage control’ surgery and the principles of dealing with mass casualties. All doctors who attended the course were practicing clinicians, who came over from neighbouring Syria to receive first-class training and develop their knowledge and skills, helping them to provide the best care possible with the limited resources that are available to them.

The feedback from the attendees was extremely positive, and plans are already in place to run another course next year. If you would like to support such valiant and essential efforts, then please make a donation to Syria Relief via https://www.syriarelief.org. uk/donate/.

Carole Spencer, Strategy and Development Director, recently spent a morning with the Clinical Coding Team at Preston, and came away hugely impressed with the team and their dedication! Clinical Coding takes the health record updates that have been made for admitted patient care each month. They translate the written record into a national-standard clinical code and generate a Healthcare Resource Group code (HRG). Because our health records are not always easy to read, it takes skill and experience to read and interpret what has happened in each episode.

This is really important, because it gives us a record of what we have done clinically to each patient and allows us to hold the information electronically. This helps clinical audit to do their work and helps specialties to know at a total level what is happening to their case mix. Coded data is also important for consultants for their appraisal and revalidation and it is the data that calculates our mortality statistics. Also, we can only get paid by the commissioners on data that is coded. This means that £500m a year only gets into our bank account if the team code it, and within a deadline called the “freeze date” each month!

It’s quite a feat, but the team code all records that they receive by the freeze date – even if that means working through holiday periods!

However Carol’s visit identified a few areas where we could be better - but we need clinical team help rather than coding help.

1. Every month, records are on Quadramed showing a patient has been discharged… but the health records do not get sent back to coding.

Coding chases the wards and some reappear, but about 50 a month never do and the freeze date passes. If an average inpatient episode earns us £2,000, then that means we are losing up to £1.2million a year in income. Can all Ward Clerks see what can be done to make sure every record goes back to coding team as soon as a patient is discharged, and that the discharge is notified on Quadramed as soon as possible.

loose note then comes to coding without the full health record AND without a clear clinician identifier. This is a patient safety issue - as not only has the treating clinician not had a full record to work from, but next time the patient is admitted the loose notes may not have been reconnected with the full health record and that information will not be available. Carol has asked coding to complete a weekly Datix so we can start to track how many of these events are happening and try to improve it. Anyone handling loose notes can help in the short term by identifying the clinician on the folder by putting on their name and consultant number before the note is sent to coding.

Completing digitisation of the patient record will be the answer to these problems in the longer term. This work continues, but in the meantime we can try to close the gaps in our manual processes.

You may not know that Coders work to a strict professional code of conduct. This means that they must only apply a code to something if the clinician has written it in the notes during the episode in question. The price we get paid for our work (The national tariff) is very sensitive to case mix complexity and to co-morbidity in particular.

So it is very important that clinicians write in any comorbidity every episode.For example if someone has their hernia repaired and also has diabetes, we will be able to earn a higher tariff if we can code for both features.

An exciting project the team has been leading is to use software to interrogate whether there are opportunities to go back to clinicians before freeze so check whether we have a full data set each episode. This helps us earn the tariff for the work we have done and also supports clinicians to capture their notes more fully.

Carole Spencer said: “I would like to thank our coding team for their success in beating the clock every month to ensure we get paid for what we do, and to provide an accurate coded record of the clinical work we are completing every day.”

2. Loose notes are often being used on wards when the full record is not available, and the Connect Magazine Summer 2017

Funding available from Trustee Bursary The Trustees of the former Preston Postgraduate Centre have funds available to award scholarships and bursaries to facilitate educational and research activity locally.

Applications from all permanent NHS members of staff (GP, hospital and community) would be welcome, as well as from trainees and undergraduate students in the Preston and Chorley district.

Applications will be judged on the basis of their educational value and benefit to the people of the Preston and Chorley area. Preference will be given to projects which complement the activities of the NHS but for which NHS funding is not available.

Sixth form taster days Recently, the undergraduate clinical skills team hosted the first of 3 medical careers days for 6th form students interested in pursuing a career in medicine. 50 students from Cardinal Newman College, who had expressed a keen interest in studying medicine, experienced an exciting taster into the life of a doctor.

The day followed the admission, assessment, diagnosis and management of a road traffic collision victim. During the scenario, the skills team along with some of our medical students ran the interactive workshops which included: • A&E assessment in the simulation suite • History taking & communications workshop • Patient observations • X ray interpretation • Venepuncture practical workshop

The feedback from the students was overwhelmingly positive: “Absolutely fantastic! The workshops were interesting and engaging and the staff were really supportive. A really valuable experience.

Thankyou!”

“It was an educational and extremely enjoyable day and made me certain I want to do medicine as a career” We are looking forward to hosting more students in the future with the aim of encouraging them to study medicine at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals.

Well done to all involved!

Bursary applications up to the value of £1000 will be considered by the Trustees at their biannual meetings (in March and September). Retrospective applications will not be considered. Applicants requesting larger bursaries will be invited to present their application to the Trustees at their AGM. To apply please contact, Louise Crossley, Trustee Administrator for an application form – Louise.Crossley@lthtr.nhs.uk

Epilepsy Transition Project Since forming a partnership two years ago, our paediatric and adult epilepsy teams have been working on a project with AQuA (Advancing Quality Alliance) and NHS England, with the aim of improving our service for transitioning patients from paediatric to adult epilepsy treatment and care. The team was led by Dr Christian DeGoede, one of our consultant paediatric neurologists, and was made up of consultants and specialist nurses. In previous years, the existing service was simply a handover clinic and with that no longer running, it was the perfect time to review and improve.

As part of the project, staff have been holding focus groups for young patients and their families/carers, who can come along to speak about their experiences of the current transition process and voice their fears/concerns if they were coming up to the transitioning period.

Staff have developed a nurse-led transition clinic where young people meet with both paediatric

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by, staff noticed a big improvement in their young patients’ confidence and ability to make new friends and meet others with epilepsy.

To celebrate the video’s success, the patients involved were awarded with certificates for their hard work by our Chief Executive.

and adult specialists, who can provide patients with information about their condition and discuss aspects of their life that are affected by epilepsy.

In conjunction with an organisation called Community Reporters, who work to give people a platform to have a voice, and a small group of their young patients, the staff produced a short video on what to expect when young people with epilepsy transition. As the weeks went

Feedback from the project has been extremely positive and patients have found the new service very beneficial. Staff also feel that they now have a deeper understanding of each other’s roles and have created closer working relationships between both paediatric and adult epilepsy services. Looking to the future, the team will continue to run the joint clinics and are working with charities to discuss other ways in which they can help their young patients throughout the transitioning process and beyond.

A Supportive PresENT reconstructive facial surgery. With these donations, staff on Ward 3 now have enough Doppler Scanners for each patient and our speech therapists have access to more Boogie Boards to help complete assessments.

Our new branding We’re proud to announce the launch of our new branding – a new uniform for our hospitals. The first thing you’ll notice is a slightly redesigned logo; these have been provided to every NHS organisation by NHS England, along with a new set of guidelines that we have tailored to reflect who we are and what we stand for.

Our “Excellent care with compassion” strapline can now be found within a speech bubble. This is because everything that we do – from teaching the next generation of health professionals, to meetings with staff and our interactions with patients, is all about communication. Next to the speech bubble, we have two “supporting bars”, representing our two sites of Preston and Chorley. The bars form the place holder for department and divisional names, meaning each department will reflect the excellent care with compassion they provide; the end of the bars home our social media or website channels; and underneath the bars you’ll find any relevant partnership information.

While the logo and strapline/supporting bars should be applied consistently; in-keeping with our own branding guidelines, you can be as creative as you want in the area between the two! On the intranet is an entire suite of pictures, icons, graphics and typography, which can be used in literally thousands of combinations to create your perfect document.

Our new branding is a great way to differentiate ourselves from other NHS service providers, whilst enjoying the benefits of NHS branding – it is distinctly us, and will showcase our achievements and everything that makes our hospitals special in the best light possible.

Our new branding can be found on the intranet under Corporate Information -> Corporate Identity, and you can email Scott Carey (scott.carey@lthtr.nhs.uk) with any questions.

Ward 3, our Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) department, has received a very kind donation of new equipment from The Swallows Head and Neck Cancer Support Group. Boogie Boards and Doppler Scanners are a vital part of post-surgery care within the department; the boards help patients to communicate much more simply, independently and comfortably with staff and visitors in situations where they are unable to talk after treatment, and the scanners allow staff to safely and effectively monitor patients after they’ve had

Try-ing to spread some Christmas cheer We’d like to extend a huge thank you to Mick Brakewell and Helen Duchamp, for organising Wigan Warriors rugby players coming in to Ribblesdale ward to give the patients a small gift for Christmas and spreading some Christmas cheer. This was done in memory of Jill Brakewell who sadly passed away on Ribblesdale ward in 2015.

The players spent time swapping conversions for conversations, talking to our patients, and handing out gifts including aftershave, socks, and a variety of treats. Their visit left the ward buzzing, and brightened our patient’s day!

A huge thank you to Mick, Helen, and the Wigan Warriors!

Norman Hill, from The Swallows Support Group, came to hand over the equipment to our very grateful Ward 3 team and as a previous patient in our ENT department, knows first-hand how beneficial the new resources will be to patients. Stephen Taylor, Ward Manager, said: “We’re delighted with the new equipment and can’t thank Norman and everyone at The Swallows enough for their continued support and kindness. These extra resources will go a long way in helping us to continue to provide high-quality, compassionate care for our patients during their time with us.”

Knitting for our premature babies Our neonatal unit was recently visited by the University of Central Lancashire community shop Manager Lee Mac, and volunteers Pat Morris, Olive Appleby, and Enid Bosworth, who gifted a box bursting with intricate, beautifully designed knitwear to be passed on to very grateful parents.

Joanne Smith, Matron, said: “We really appreciate the generosity and hard work of everyone at the UCLan Community Shop. All knitwear, especially hats, is an important part of our care in Neonatal, as it helps to keep our babies warm and cosy in their cots. This will mean a lot to our families, who are having an even busier Christmas than normal and might not get the chance to go to the shops for presents. Thank you!”

Connect Magazine Summer 2017

The Wii walk that will imrpove the experience for major trauma patients The girl guides from Rishton and Great Harwood kindly decided to fundraise for our Major Trauma Ward, in the form of a sponsored walk.

They raised a fantastic £1500, which has been spent on a TV, a TV stand, and a Nintendo Wii U. The Major Trauma ward cares for patients who have often have multiple, extensive and painful injuries. They can be on the ward for long periods of time while they are recovering from their injuries, and are often in a low mood, bored, and unmotivated.

Fundraising for our bereavement support group Lucy Clark, who started volunteering for the bereavement support group last year, recently competed in the Southport Triathlon, in a spectacular time of 2 hours 57 minutes, raising a whopping £1000!

The group is for anyone who has been bereaved, and aims to help them understand and express their grief and loss in practical and creative ways, as it relies upon the generosity of the public in order to continue to support those who have been bereaved, any donations are hugely appreciated. Thank you Lucy!

The friends of Chorley The Friends of Chorley – which is in its 67th year of fundraising – is a charity that supports our hospital and the patients that visit us.

Founded in November of 1950, when the National Health Service was in its second year, they fundraise through tombola’s, coach trips, and donations, and the money they’ve raised has gone towards things like TVs and reclining chairs for wards at Chorley.

Money can be requested for anything benefiting patient care at Chorley hospital.

To put in a request, call Enid Armstrong on 01257 274984.

The Friends do a fantastic job supporting our hospital and we are incredibly grateful for all that they do!

The girl guides decided that a television, the stand and the Nintendo Wii would be a great idea for patients, as bed-bound and immobile patients can play easily and comfortably if their injuries are limiting their ability to move well, and patients can play games together with their relatives, other patients, or by themselves.

Meet bobby, our pat dog Pets as Therapy dogs are fantastic – but please remember that anyone interacting with patients needs to go through all of the relevant checks.

To streamline this, if you’d like to book a PAT dog to visit your patient, please contact Sylvia Turner to arrange Bobby and his owner. They have both been through all the checks, and Bobby’s owner is one of our registered volunteers!

The Wii U has been really well received by patients of all ages, and we’re incredibly grateful to the guides for their support!

Getting hip with a fracture masterclass We recently hosted the North West Hip Fracture Masterclass, lead by our surgical trainees, – the first of its kind in the North West specifically devoted to hip fractures aimed at surgeons in training. The course, a one-day practical skills course aimed at junior orthopaedic trainee surgeons, was hands-on and encompassed the skills required to fix hip fractures, combined with consultant-led teaching on the rationale for hip fracture management employed by the Orthopaedic department and in accordance with NICE guidelines.

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The course received some excellent and very positive feedback from the delegates, particularly with respect to the excellent standard of teaching. With special thanks to Mr Chitre and Mr Boden, and also Dr Rubina Japanwala (Consultant Orthogeriatrician) and Reinier Van Merlo (Head Physiotherapist in Orthopaedics, RPH), and Phil Haliwell of Stryker, who kindly sponsored the event, without whom we would not have been able to run this course!

In this issue of Connect, we are focusing on all the great health and wellbeing activities and events that take place within our hospitals.

5-A-SIDE Our first staff 5-A-Side tournament has taken place. Eight teams took part and the camaraderie was evident throughout the event. The final was a closely fought game, with teams named HRCND and #2185 battling it out, but it was #2185 who claimed victory and lifted the trophy!

NHS NORTH WEST GAMES 2017 We recently got together with 16 other NHS organisations across the region for this year’s NHS North West Games Day. With sports including netball, 7-a-side football, rounders, and badminton, there was more than enough

If you are interested in taking part in the next tournament please email healthandwellbeing@lthtr.nhs.uk

for everyone to get stuck into – and there was even sports tournaments for the kids!

Everyone had a great day out, and the day was a huge success – bring on 2018!

A Lancashire state of mind Our Leadership Advisor, Nicola Sweet, is a qualified Mental Health First Aid Course Facilitator and is pleased to announce that our hospitals now offer two day courses as part of a new programme. The mental wellbeing of our staff is very important and we want to ensure that the right resources and support are available for anyone who might be experiencing poor mental health within our workplace. The course on offer is internationally recognised and is designed to teach people how to spot the signs and symptoms of mental ill health and provide help on a first aid basis. It explores a set of skills, which enable you to support someone experiencing mental health issues, and gives a deeper understanding of the issues that impact on, and relate to, people’s mental health.

Nicola has received great feedback from the courses ran at the beginning of the year, sparking some in-depth discussions about the reality of

mental health in a workplace as busy as ours. If you’re interested in attending the course yourself, please contact Emma Glynn on x8463 to book a place.

Derren Bailey, our Leadership Development Advisor, will also be delivering a useful course throughout 2017. The Managing Organisational Stress Course will be running in three parts, providing eLearning, a face-to-face classroom session and one-on-one feedback with a member of our Organisational Development team. Comprising of best practice guidelines and materials, the course will be made up of content specifically designed for our staff and will aid managers in supporting their staff and effectively managing stress for themselves and others. If you’re a manager and would like to know more, please view the course dates information in the Workforce and Education Directorate folder on the T drive.

Movember fundraising reaches £200 Health & Wellbeing Champion Tom Overton has been very busy throughout November, baking cakes, growing a moustache and running a sponsored 10K, to raise vital funds for research into men’s health conditions and treatments. £200 had already been raised through these efforts, which will benefit research and projects around prostate and testicular cancers, men’s mental health and suicide prevention. Very well done Tom and a big thank you to everyone who has supported his fundraising.

A new service from Health & Wellbeing Health & Wellbeing are setting up a new service to support staff psychological wellbeing, building on our existing psychological wellbeing offering, which includes mindfulness training and counselling.

Liz Tallentire, our current mindfulness practitioner and a clinical psychologist will be

leading the service. Funding has been agreed for the next two years, and we are in the early stages of planning the service, but the initial ideas include: continuing our popular mindfulness training, complementing our counselling service by providing psychological assessment and therapy for staff on a referral basis, where this is most appropriateproviding advice and intervention relating to stress risk

assessments for individuals and teams, and developing support systems following traumatic incidents at work.

If you have any ideas or comments about this service Health & Wellbeing would love to hear from you, please email healthandwellbeing@lthtr.nhs.uk

Connect Magazine Summer 2017

Mindfulness case study Give it a go: crown green bowling Don’t be fooled by its gentle image; Crown Green Bowling is a highly sociable and very competitive sport, as well as being brilliant exercise, and you don’t need a partner to join in the fun. If you’re new to the sport, why not take advantage of some coaching sessions to learn the basics?

Coaching sessions are available at Coppull Conservative Club, Spendmore Lane, Coppull, PR7 5DF on Saturday afternoons. Also, at St Johns Bowling Club, Broadway, Fulwood, PR2 9YE on Friday evenings.This brilliant opportunity to learn the basics of a fun and enjoyable activity costs just £2 per session.

You do not need a partner to take part and everyone is welcome. Flat footwear is the only requirement (trainers are ideal) and bowls will be provided. If you are interested in taking part please contact your Health and Wellbeing Team at healthandwellbeing@lthtr.nhs. uk or tel: ext. 7673.

Managing organisational stress Derren Bailey, Leadership and Organisational Development Advisor, facilitates a one day workshop for managers. The aim is to raise awareness and knowledge of organisational stress, develop understanding of the key sources of stress at work, and plan how these can be managed. For more information and booking details please email Derren.Bailey@ lthtr.nhs.uk

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Chorley Theatres team Mindfulness has become an extremely popular way of looking after your personal mental wellbeing in recent years. During a Mindfulness session, people are asked to bring attention to the present moment and raise awareness throughout the body, focusing on any tension or stress. Within our hospitals, we have our very own Mindfulness Practitioner, Liz Tallentire, who has joined our fantastic Health & Wellbeing team in a bid to help staff in a very stressful, busy environment to stay on top of their own health as well as their patients!

Since starting her Mindfulness mission, Liz has had a lot of success teaching the form of meditation to staff from a range of departments, holding well-attended courses and sessions during times to suit everyone. In order to ensure that staff who may benefit the most from Mindfulness had the opportunity to take part, Liz conducted research into departments and teams that had the highest sickness rate in our hospitals. From this, our staff working in the theatres at Chorley were chosen to work alongside Liz in taking part in Mindfulness sessions, if they were interested, to see if it had any effect on the team’s overall sickness percentage and overall wellbeing. The results will also be used to compare against other teams with high sickness numbers who haven’t tried Mindfulness to determine its effectiveness.

Several members of our theatre staff at Chorley have since given Mindfulness a try and are very impressed with the results. Clinical Manager, Lynn McGuirk, has noticed a truly positive difference amongst her team and is keen to see more members of staff practice Mindfulness and feel the benefits; Lynn said: “Despite a slow start, Mindfulness has been a real success withinour team . Our staff have seen benefits within both their work life and in general, with some of them even seeking out sessions externally! We have a very supportive team here in the theatres,

and have all pulled together to ensure that staff cover is available for those in the team who are interested in taking part in the Mindfulness sessions. I’m hoping even more of our team, including myself,will be able to try it out in the future and see the effects for ourselves. A big thank you to Liz for working with us to improve our sickness numbers with this simple yet brilliant initiative! I will definitely be continuing to offer it as a means of support for any of my staff who may be experiencing difficulties with workloads and stress.”

From a participant perspective, Anaesthetic and Recovery Nurse, Caroline Davidson, has nothing but praise for Mindfulness and taking a more holistic approach to reducing stress and improving your overall wellbeing. Here’s what she had to say about her Mindfulness experience: “I found out about Mindfulness during an appraisal meeting and was immediately interested in taking part, as I’m always keen to try new and different things. It came at the right time for me as well, as I was feeling quite stressed and tired at work and was unsure of how to tackle it. For eight weeks, I took part in 2 hour sessions and learnt a range of techniques that I’ve been able to take away with memaking great use of them both at home and at work when I feel the need to ground myself.

In my opinion, working in an environment as busy as the NHS leaves you at risk of going on autopilot, which is a massive danger when you’re looking after the lives of patients; therefore, I would highly recommend Mindfulness to anyone working within our organisation, as it’s a fantastic tool for keeping you focused and can be used at any time. I will definitely be carrying on practicing Mindfulness in work and during my spare time- thank you very much to Liz for introducing me to it!”

Father Figures

Become a Health & Wellbeing Champion We have a growing number of Health and Wellbeing Champions across the organisation.

We meet regularly to discuss how we can improve the visibility of the Health and Wellbeing Team and highlight what we do.

Input from the champs is invaluable and is helping to inform and shape the work of the team by generating and developing ideas.

If you are ready for a new challenge and are passionate about the health and wellbeing of your colleagues then you would make a great champion.

You decide how much time you can give to this voluntary role, perhaps by taking part in health promotion events, passing on information about activities or gathering feedback. It really is up to you.

If you are interested in being a champion please contact your Health and Wellbeing Team.

Tel: 01257 24(7673) healthandwellbeing@lthtr.nhs.uk

Excellent care with compassion One of our Trainee Assistant Practitioners, Christine Leeming, worked with her colleagues on Ward 23 to facilitate a patient’s pet dog being brought into the ward. The patient had previously been very distressed about her hospital stay and was completely focused on seeing her dog, as this was very meaningful to her. Christine and the staff on Ward 23 recognised that small things can make all the difference and worked hard to make the visit possible, providing a shining example of good practice in end of life care and thoroughly embodying our values into their patient treatment.

After the visit from her dog, the patient became much more settled for her stay and engaged with her assessments/care more, as she felt her wishes had been respected and recognised. A credit to our hospitals, keep up the amazing and compassionate care!

One of our staff nurses in neonatal, Rachel Walmsley, has written a research article as part of her Masters in Intensive Care. In recognition of her fantastic work, she has been published in the 2016 Journal of Neonatal Nursing! The article itself is a literature review looking into the experience of fathers during their visits and time spent on neonatal units.

In general, there is a popular belief that fathers feel left out during and post-pregnancy; mothers tend to be the first point of contact for staff and this leaves fathers feeling like they have a lack of control. On the neonatal ward, this is an even more prominent issue because

their babies are often sick or born early. After completing her research, Rachel decided that she wanted to look into how fathers on our own neonatal unit can be given more support.

Leaving a lasting effect on her, Rachel’s asked colleagues if books can be supplied for fathers to read from when they come to spend time and bond with their newborn. She’s also encouraging fathers on the unit to keep a diary to be shared with staff, so that they’re writing down all of their thoughts and concerns without worrying about how to communicate them. Sounds fantastic and like it will make a real difference! Congratulations, Rachel!

Research cafes

Nhs health checks – get yours at work!

In collaboration with UCLan’s College of Health and Wellbeing, we’re running informal get-togethers over lunchtime, for those interested in research who want to meet likeminded people.

Are you aged 40-74? Do you live in a Lancashire County Council area? Have you not had a NHS Health Check in the last five years?

Then chances are you can access a FREE, halfhour NHS Health Check at work – no hassle, just book yourself an appointment by ringing ext 7673 or email healthandwellbeing@lthtr. nhs.uk . You’ll get a cholesterol test, blood pressure test, BMI and lifestyle assessment by a qualified provider, and lots of useful advice.

It could be a lifesaver! More information about NHS Health Checks, and eligibility, can be found via a link on the Health and Wellbeing intranet page.

In Health Academy 1, Preston hospital, 19th of September; 17th of October; and 12th of December, and Chorlies Restaurant, Chorley hospital, on the 18th of July and 21st of November.

There will always be someone present from the Clinical Academic Faculty, so look out for the blue and yellow Research Café sign!

For further information, email clinical.academic@lthtr.nhs.uk, or alison.mcloughlin@lthtr.nhs.uk

Meet our new cell mate We’ve recently taken delivery of a new state-of-the-art robot that will improve outcomes for patients with cancer. We are first hospital in the north of England to have this latest advanced robotic surgical system, which will treat patients who have bowel, gastrointestinal, urological and gynaecological cancers.

We are also just one of three in the country, and the only one in the North West, to be able to provide treatment for upper gastrointestinal cancer using this new robot.

The robot can bend and rotate 360 degrees, making it much easier for our surgeons to

access parts of the body that are difficult to reach, and undertake complex procedures using keyhole incisions rather than open surgery, reducing the risk of complications and enabling a speedier recovery.

Our cancer surgeons have had bespoke training and visited world renowned centres in Europe to complete their learning and practise skills.

We’re extremely proud to be leading the way in cancer treatment, and would like to thank the Rosemere Foundation for their fundraising – without which we would not have the robot.

Connect Magazine Summer 2017

Dementia Conference As part of Dementia Awareness Week we held a dementia conference, to showcase many inspirational and educational experiences. The conference included visits and talks from staff, researchers and campaigners Dementia Awareness Week is a national effort to encourage people to unite against the disease. Our dedicated teams hoped to demonstrate how every single member of staff has an important role to play; by working together, we can all make a huge difference.

Training opportunities were encouraged and promoted for all our staff regardless of occupation – and as many as possible were encouraged to become dementia champions.

The staff also explained what a dementia friendly environment is, and explored the impact that the hospital environment has on helping and hindering those who are living with dementia. Staff working in public accessed areas were also asked to develop and maintain their own dementia friendly environments.

A range of information was available to support staff in caring for someone in hospital who is living with dementia, as was information on how to get involved in John’s campaign, a national campaign that welcomes the carers of those living with dementia to stay in hospital with them for as long as they wish, and our new Carer’s Charter, which demonstrates our commitment to supporting patients with dementia and their families, to recognise and support the important work of carer’s.

The day was brought to a close by the Alzheimer’s Society who delivered their fantastic and engaging Dementia Friend’s Session – where the audience learned a little bit more about what it's like to live with dementia and how to turn that understanding into action.

Running for a fantastic cause Dr Daniel Cottle and his wife Jen ran the Manchester Marathon, raising money for Ataxia UK, which supports those suffering from neurological conditions of the same name.

They completed the course in a combined time of 6:55:26, raising £1722!

Funding the Future Our Lancashire Clinical Research Facility (CRF) has been successful in their application to be a recipient for a prestigious funding package from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

Acute pain e-learning pack is now live on the intranet Ruth Palliser, Acute Pain Nurse, in conjunction with the Blended Learning team have produced an E-Learning pack for staff. The pack consists of three parts and staff can complete one or all of them, depending upon what is relevant to their area. The sessions cover oral analgesia, patient controlled pumps, and epidurals. The team hope that staff find them useful in increasing their knowledge to benefit patient care. The E-Learning pack can be accessed on the eLearning page of the intranet (https://elearning. lthtr.nhs.uk), under Acute Pain Management.

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Lasting five years, from April 2017 to March 2022, the fantastic £750,000 bursary will be used by our researchers in conjunction with specialist staff and students from Lancashire Care and Lancaster University respectively.

The aim for the funding is to aid our CRF in conducting world-class research in the field of experimental medicine.

This is a huge achievement for the region and our hospitals; it will make a real difference to our patients, open up opportunities for our population to have access to more high quality clinical trials in a safe and comfortable environment, and allow our facility to go from strength to strength within research and development.

Amazing news, congratulations!

I would cycle 400 miles…

Our Research team recently celebrated International Clinical Trials Day and the day was a huge success! The team set themselves (and whoever else they could rope in!) the challenge of virtually cycling to every Clinical Research Facility in the North of England, which worked out at 408 miles. Not only did they achieve this goal, but through their fundraising activities – two clinical trials, involving chocolate and cake, a tombola, and a raffle, they raised £562 for the Rosemere Cancer Foundation, and for a new chilled centrifuge which separates blood and plasma, and allows for a wide variety of tests to be completed; and a pharmacy within the Clinical Research Facility! Well done team research!

Cyber attack: A huge thank you

Dying to work charter

We’d like to extend a huge thank you to the IT Department, and everyone who helped in the aftermath of the cyberattack that affected our hospitals recently. Your determination and team work was an inspiration, and ensured minimal disruption to our patients and a swift resolution to the incident.

We are now a signatory to Trade Union Congress’ Dying to Work charter. The charter, which lays out the ways in which an employer can and should support an employee living with a terminal illness, highlights our commitment to our staff, especially when they’re facing such challenging times.

Your response to this incident encapsulates what makes our NHS great – and we’re incredibly grateful to you all!

20 Years of radiotherapy The first Radiotherapy patient was treated at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals over 20 years ago, in the Lancashire and Lakeland Radiotherapy Centre. We now treat around 4000 patients every year! The team has grown since our first patient visited all those years ago, but amazingly, 10 members of the initial team are still working with us today!

A huge achievement, and we look forward to the next 20 years!

Congratulations, Davide!

Davide Cavallaro, one of our Italian Nurses, has recently been made acting Band 6 Charge Nurse on Ward 4! Davide came to Preston in January 2015 through our collaboration with IPASVI – the Italian equivalent of the Nursing and Midwifery Council. He originates from Sicily, completed his nursing degree in 2010; masters in 2013; and is the first of our Italian nurses to gain a promotion, which he worked incredibly hard to achieve!

Cooking up tasty treats for our Laryngectomy patients Dr Thomas Moors, our Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist, has been leading a project alongside our Dieticians and Speech & Language Therapists, and Gordon Ramsay-trained chef, Russell Lee, to create tasty treats for our patients who have had their voice box removed.

A very kind donation to our vascular ward During Ann Heyes’ time in our hospitals last year, she witnessed the transformation of an empty room to the very popular Vascular Inpatient (VIP) Lounge; an initiative that her family praised and said they benefited from a great deal throughout her care.

In the lounge, which staff fundraised for and decorated themselves, patients and relatives can relax in a lovely environment full of home comforts.

Sadly, Ann has now passed away, but her family wanted to make sure that future patients and visitors in continue to have the same quality experience that they did. So, during Ann’s funeral, her family made the thoughtful decision to ask for money instead of flowers to go towards donations for the VIP Lounge.

They recently delivered half of their gifts, and the staff on the ward have been overwhelmed by their support - receiving countless DVDs, CDs, colouring books, games, and a new CD and DVD player!

We’d like to extend a massive thank-you to the Heyes family; your continued kindness is very much appreciated.

Patients usually have a laryngectomy to treat cancer, and after the procedure the sense of taste and the ability to swallow are altered by the removal of the voice box; up to 30% of people suffer from depression and social isolation as a result.

Our multi-disciplinary team are hoping that by creating exciting new recipes our laryngectomy patients will be able to regain the element of interactivity that cooking and eating with family and friends brings. They recently held a taster session to help our local laryngectomy support group to determine which smells, tastes and textures work best for them in regards to enjoyment, ease of swallowing and palatability. Following on from the taster session, the team are hoping to collate a range of approved recipes to turn into a cookbook; they will also be looking to hold a monthly support group lunch that brings laryngectomy patients and their families together, to talk and share tips and thoughts over Russell’s fantastic, laryngectomy-friendly creations.

Thomas has founded a charity called ‘Shout at Cancer’, which specialises in voice rehabilitation and regaining confidence - it is the only charity in the world that provides this kind of support, and we couldn’t be prouder of the work he’s doing and his dedication to his patients!

Connect Magazine Summer 2017

Awards round-up

Well done, Clip team!

Strategy and Development afternoon tea awards Our Strategy and Development Directorate has recently held an Afternoon Tea Awards event, in recognition of teams and individuals who have worked hard to improve our services and quality of care.

Staff members were invited to submit nominations for the following categories: • Supervisor/Manager of the Year - Winner: Janet Barton, Deputy Catering Manager • Learner of the Year - Winner: Quinta Davies, Information Analyst (top row right) • Going that Extra Mile - Winners: David

Crawley, Trainee Chef; Marie Redshaw, (bottom row right) Section Leader; our Estates Plumbing Team (bottom row centre) • Employee of the Year - Winner: Our Post Room Team (top row centre) • Innovator of the Year - Winners: Zuber Ismail, Section Leader, & Mubarak Patel, Developer (bottom row left) • Chief Executive’s Special Award Winner: Our Security Team (top row left) Congratulations to the winners!

Our Collaborative Learning in Practice team have been selected as finalists for the “Student Experience” Student Nursing Times award!

The nomination reflects the innovative approach of the team in utilising clinical placements in a different way.

The programme allows a larger-than-normal group of students to be allocated to a specific placement area, and then sub allocated to “learning bays” where they undertake holistic care of a group of patients, linked to a specific learning outcome; such as understanding patients’ conditions, anatomy and physiology, prescribed medications and side effects.

Our award-winning finance team its governance arrangements in order that the organisation as a whole is better able to achieve its objectives. The aim of the award is to promote a strong, integrated approach to governance.

We have recently been crowned the winner of the Governance Awards category at the Healthcare Financial Management Association Awards in central London; which are prestigious annual awards that celebrate excellence in finance departments across the NHS. The governance award is awarded to an organisation that has introduced a change to

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After we were identified as an organisation in ‘financial distress’ in April 2015, we recognised that we needed to do things differently and the need for any changes made to be sustainable.

Our award submission was based on the changes that were introduced.

There were a number of robust measures that were implemented as a result of our financial situation. External management consultants were replaced with a substantive in-house team, saving an initial £1.8m. We set up a twice-monthly performance review meetings, jointly chaired by the Finance and Operations Directors. A new approval process for efficiency

schemes was devised, giving key divisional stake holders as well as the executive team a say on which schemes are implemented and which aren’t. There is also a monthly Productivity and Efficiency Program Steering Board, attended

by Executive colleagues and relevant senior representatives, to ensure the programmes of work are on track. We have already shared the best practice from our success, with Alder Hey Children’s Hospitals NHSFT and Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHSFT and have other organisations Transformation and Finance teams keen to liaise with us.

Well done to everyone who is part of implementing any efficiency proposals as part of the Productivity and Efficiency Programme as you are all a key part of its success and the reason for us winning the award!

Singing about our unsung heroes Five members of staff have been nominated for GoToJobBoard’s Unsung Hero Awards – which are set up to recognise the hard work that nonclerical healthcare staff do every day, that can sometimes go unnoticed.

Of course, these five are so good that they couldn’t help but be noticed! Peter McClean, our Post Room Supervisor, was nominated because of the changes he has implemented in the post room: ensuring that addresses on envelopes be typed, at a saving of up to 12p per letter; sending letters second class instead of first, further saving money; and ensuring that all letters are situated properly inside the envelope, so that no confidential information is identifiable.

Janet Oats, Ward Clark on our respiratory ward, was nominated because of the

improvements she has made to her team, and the way they work. Janet retired, but was back after six months later with new ideas and some fresh thinking. She has been co-ordinating Ward Clarks, organising breakfast meetings, and implemented a rota for cross-cover, which means that Ward Clarks across seven wards decide where they would be most useful and disperse accordingly, whereas before they were unable to do so.

Jason Bates, Facilities Assistant Manager, was nominated because of the work he has done around work schedules in our Emergency Department; he created a brand new team who are responsible for deep-cleaning each cubicle in our ED at Royal Preston hospital. Thanks to this development, standards have now significantly improved, and we are achieving between 97% - 100% in audits.

Steven Smith, Security Supervisor, was nominated because of his commitments to the job and to the organisation. As well as being the acting Supervisor for both sites across Preston and Chorley within the Security department, Steven has been training staff on violence and aggression management, and has been instrumental in managing the demonstrations at Chorley Hospital.

And finally, Adrian Hawtin, who is our Multimedia Developer, were nominated for his willingness to go the extra mile in what he does, and because of the dynamic and innovative work they produce, and the professionalism with which they approach it.

Well done everyone!

Go procurement!

Our Procurement team, in partnership with Ingenica Solutions, have won the “Go Best Innovative Solution” Go award, and the Excellence in Supply Award for the North West for the successful implementation of an innovative inventory management solution, named Atticus, across our theatre departments.

The aim for implementing Atticus, the first certified inventory management solution in the UK, was to better our existing supply chain model. One of our main drivers for change was our obligation to make savings across the board and, most importantly, ensure patient safety and a high-quality level of care. By introducing the solution to our busiest, most challenging and highest spend area - our operating theatres - in its initial stages, we hoped to gain an organisation-wide view of inventory levels, by assigning costs to both the patient line and the service line.

From this, our theatre departments have seen greater than anticipated benefits and are now at the forefront of effective and efficient supply

chain management within our hospitals. Some of the outstanding results include: a saving of 7,104 clinical hours, a cleaner, more organised environment, and an overall benefit to how we care for our patients.

Our Head of Supply Chain, Ian Britcliffe, who attended the ceremony said: “I’d just like to say how proud I am of the team I work with. We have built the team up over the past 3 years and this is a massive recognition of the efforts they put in every day of the week. We are now beginning to reap the rewards for the time and commitment ourselves and Ingenica Solutions have put into the project. We are ahead of the curve in terms of inventory management within the NHS nationally, and this project will help pave the way towards the adoption of global standards.”

A fantastic achievement, more than deserving of the award – well done Procurement!

Shining a spotlight on Rookwood B Rookwood B, one of our dementia friendly wards at Chorley, is a shining example of the wonderful things that happen in our hospital!

They’ve won a Quality Award, and are the only ward to have won a Beacon Award; they’ve implemented a wonderful staff board, which is being continually complemented by patients and visitors. They’ve also added an information board with leaflets for patients, staff and visitors to read, and every member of staff on shift took part in #EndPJParalysis – even raising money for Comic Relief in the process!

Connect Magazine Summer 2017

North West Employee Engagement Group awards The Organisational Development team have been nominated for several North West Employee Engagement Awards: Derren Bailey, Leadership Development Advisor in Organisational Development has been nominated for the “Be Extraordinary” category; Louisa Graham, Deputy Director of Workforce & Education has been nominated for “HR Professional of the Year”; Rita Chauhan, Personal Assistant, has been nominated for “Most Emotionally Intelligent Leader”; and Nicola Sweet, Leadership Development Adviser in Organisational Development has been nominated for “New Recruit of the Year”.

Derren was nominated because, since joining the organisation in 2014, he has been the key advocate for developing a Coaching Culture.

He uses his own expert coaching skills to support others through direct coaching, as well

as through the development and delivery of nationally accredited coaching programmes, whereby the organisation has increased the number of qualified workplace coaches able to support the needs of staff.

Louisa was nominated because she shows real dedication to her team and profession; because she takes strategic responsibility for the service and also contributes directly through coaching, mentoring, running development centres and delivering leadership programmes alongside prioritising regular meetings with individual members of her team. She can be relied upon to support, from providing guidance on a difficult decision to simply getting stuck in with setting up a room for a presentation event.

Rita was nominated because she recently attended ILM level 3 Leadership & Management programme and from the first session showed

her enthusiasm for developing not only herself but the wider service. She is heavily involved within her community, and last year was elected to be the assistant general secretary for England’s Mochi Community. , she utilises her emotional intelligence to motivate the community bringing open, honest and authentic relationships to develop working together and best practice across the country.

Nicola was nominated because she has gone beyond all requirements to make sure that our leadership offering is effective and relevant to all leaders throughout the organisation, irrespective of banding. Nicola is passionate that leadership is relevant to all, not about specific roles or staff bands. She has gone beyond all requirements to make sure that our leadership Congratulations to all for the nominations, and especially to Louisa who won HR Professional of the Year!

Sarah’s award-winning poster Sarah Edney, one of our Speech and Language Therapists, won the Best Poster award at the Integrated Clinical Academic Training Programme’s ‘Developing your Clinical Academic Career’ event, for a

poster she designed to highlight the key role of parents in early interventions for infants at risk of neuro development disorders! Congratulations, Sarah!

Workforce & Education Awards Outstanding Individual –Amy Belch (pictured) Outstanding Contribution to Patient Care – Collaborative Learning in Practice (CLIP) Business /Financial Acumen – Michael Blackburn Living the Values – Education Centre Management Innovation & Creativity – Organisational Development Team /Talent Management Programme Team of the Year – Recruitment Team The annual Workforce & Education Awards was a fantastic night as always, with a great turnout of 147 staff from across our Workforce & Education Directorate.

There were eight categories made up of four finalists- all chosen for their excellent contributions to the directorate and our hospitals over the last year. The categories and their winners were:

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Research Impact Award – Jackie Baldwin/ Alison Mcloughlin (LRAG) Directorate Award – Lisa Eccles Well done to everyone who was named a finalist and congratulations to the winners!

Thank you for all your hard work.

An award to illustrate their achievements Two members of our Medical Illustration team have won a Bronze award each at the 2016 Institute of Medical Illustrators awards ceremony. Submitting their work to the annual awards for the first time this year, Andrea Jones and Sue Hardy were not only recognised for their outstanding medical photographs, they were also honoured by The Wellcome Trust. The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation that exists to improve health for everyone by helping great ideas to thrive, and they are looking to acquire high-quality images that relate to biomedical science and contemporary healthcare to support this mission; as a result, our hospitals will now be enrolled as a provider of bespoke medical photographs, for which we will accrue 60% in royalties when our photographers’ approved and consented images are used- amazing! Cat Lamoon, our Senior Medical Photographer, said: “Andrea and Sue constantly strive to improve their skills and the patient experience; they deserve this prestigious recognition for their hard work and determination. Well done to them both.”

Patricia, awardwinner!

Our Community Maternity Support Worker, Patricia Leyland, has won a prestigious national award for ‘Non-Midwife Contribution to Midwifery Practice’ at the British Journal of Midwifery Practice Awards, 2017 (BJM).

The BJM Awards have become an important event on the midwifery calendar, recognising hard-working individuals and teams for their outstanding achievements within the midwifery profession.

Patricia has been in post since 2009 but before that, she worked for 10 years in our Chorley Birth Centre. Originally, Patricia’s role as Community Maternity Support Worker was created to support midwives with clinics and postnatal visits; however, over the years, Patricia and our midwifery team have worked to expand her role into one that also supports pregnant women, expecting couples, and new mothers with mental health issues, child protection, alcohol and drug addiction, social problems and learning difficulties.

From the early stages of pregnancy, Patricia is on hand to teach and support women with every aspect of parenthood and give advice during difficult times. Patricia said: “I always say if I can improve the quality of a woman and her family’s life on a day-to-day basis, then I’m doing my job well. I feel very honoured to have received this award and would like to thank Joanne Goss, Matron of Midwiferyled Services, and Dr. Tracey Cooper, Head of Midwifery at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, for nominating me.”

A real asset to our hospitals who is more than deserving of this fantastic recognition, thank you for everything that you do for our patients and our community, Patricia!

Student/Quality Ambassador Conference awards Damian Dagg, Student Nurse, received his award for being the Student Quality Ambassador of the year, he has shown consistent commitment to this role. He strives to deliver quality in all aspects of his career and promotes the role of the SQA to other students and staff in the clinical environment.

Jonty Kenward, Trust lead for Student Quality Ambassadors and Quality Ambassadors, is the point of contact for them and meets with them to discuss the projects they would like to undertake; which she then facilitates. She received her award for achievements as a clinical link.

Well done to you both!

A massive thank you to our long-serving staff 51 members of our staff attended a ceremony at Park Hall Hotel, where they were thanked and commended by our Chief Executive and Chairman for completing 25 years of service. Between them, our staff have worked a total of 1275 years and it’s fantastic to see that they’re enjoying their roles just as much now as when they first started!

Apprenticeship awards A huge congratulations to our Apprenticeship Awards winners!

Intermediate Apprentice of the Year – Highly Commended – George Mathew, Catering Services Intermediate Apprentice of the Year – Highly Commended – David Wareing, Clinical Application & Training Support Intermediate Apprentice of the Year 2017 – Rebecca Green, Resuscitation Services Advanced/Higher Apprentice of the Year – Highly Commended – Robert Haworth, Risk Management Training Advanced/Higher Apprentice of the Year – Highly Commended – Samantha Booth, Pharmacy Advanced/Higher Apprentice of the Year 2017 – Will Dougan, Catering Services Provider Apprentice of the Year – Highly Commended, Robyn Young Provider Apprentice of the Year 2017 – Ellenor Stavert, Finance Living the Trust Values Apprentice of the Year – Highly Commended – Adnaan Patel, Main X-Ray Department Living the Trust Values Apprentice of the Year 2017 – Lia Bistro, MRI Department Apprentice of the Year 2017 – Will Dougan, Catering Services

Improving personcentred care for patients with Dementia Allyson Rigby, one of our Emergency Department Senior Healthcare Assistants, has won a competition carried out by the Royal College of Nursing.

She has led the adaptation to patient wristbands for patients with diagnosed dementia. A ‘Forget Me Not’ flower cutter, the dementia flower symbol is used in the space between the patient details and the barcode informing staff to use dementia training. This ensures the patient receives appropriate treatment and care through person-centred care, as specified within dementia training.

Being chosen as one of the Royal College of Nursing’s 100 projects will give Allyson the opportunity to introduce this initiative into other NHS Trusts.

Well done, Allyson!

Connect Magazine Summer 2017

Diagnostics and Clinical Support Division team & Employee of the Month awards The Diagnostics & Clinical Support Division have monthly team/employee awards; nominations are made by colleagues, managers, patients or visitors, and help to showcase the fantastic work being done within the division!

Employee of the Month, January 2017: Debbie Dunn, Patient Co-Ordinator – Integrated Discharge Service. (above left)

Cooking our way to a healthier future We know through our catering surveys that staff want to see a range of healthy food options in our outlets. Our catering team is committed to creating a menu that is both appealing and promotes health; in particular reducing fats, sugars and, salt within the dishes they create for staff, visitors and patients.

Achievements so far:

Team of the Month, January 2017: Capacity Management Team.(above centre))

Davis, Macmillan Cancer Information & Support Assistant.

Employee of the Month, February 2017: Angie Mauback, Matron for Theatres.

Team of the Month, March 2017: Pre-Operative Assessment Team, CDH.

Team of the Month, February 2017: Anaesthetic & Recovery Support Worker Team. (above right)

Congratulations to the winners!

Employee of the Month, March 2017: Michelle

Motoring ahead Our Consultant Neurologist, Dr Hedley Emsley, is hoping to lead a clinical trial looking at patients with Motor Neurone Disease (MND).

In the trial, he aims to use a drug called Liraglutide, originally introduced as a treatment for type 2 diabetes, to test the benefits of it on people with MND-especially those in the early stages. A pre-clinical trial on Liraglutide is about to start, in which scientists will assess if it is as successful with its effects on

MND as it has been on Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease; if so, Dr Emsley and colleagues in other NHS Trusts-who have been involved in a project to raise money to fund the clinical trial stage-will get the green light to begin patient trials. Dr Emsley said: “This is a very encouraging development. This pre-clinical study is considered to be an essential stepping stone towards the planned clinical trial.”

We have already introduced new menus within all the outlets; A review of all commodities purchased for recipes has also been undertaken to ensure that we are reducing fats, sugars, and salt intake.

A Taste of things to come: Fish Fridays – an increased variety of fish dishes prepared using a variety of healthier cooking methods such as poached, steamed and grilled. Healthy shelf – each catering outlet will designate a shelf within a chilled display to promote healthier options including a reduced-calorie range of sandwiches, lower fat yogurts, and snack items. There will also be an increased range of fruit.

Promotion and advertising – revised signage within the catering retail outlets that makes it easier to identify healthier options, vegetarian dishes, and those dishes that do not contain gluten. Catering Services have created a ‘healthy catering plan’ which will be displayed within each outlet to demonstrate its commitment to the promotion of health through the available menu items.

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B-Be charitable Our Neonatal Unit has received another kind donation, this time of a brilliant £600.

Cheryl Wearden’s son, Cooper, was cared for by our Neonatal staff after being born at 32 weeks. Cheryl said: “Neonatal is a place that, fortunately, most parents never need to think about. But the care and support that they provide to the parents that do need them is crucial.”

provide a fantastic level of care. With the money, our staff will be able to upgrade one of the unit’s much-used breast pumps and provide lovely kits to mothers that include two fabric hearts; one which goes in the incubator with their baby and one that is worn by the mum to pick up scents- then they are swapped to aid in soothing the baby and helping the mum to produce milk during a difficult time.

Cheryl contacted the BB Charitable Foundation, who award grants to different causes, to ask for funds to help our Neonatal team continue to

On behalf of our Neonatal staff and the families under their incredible care, thank you!

A variety of ways to fundraise

A caring donation A family who’s baby was treated on our neonatal intensive care unit have been back to donate an incredible £900 to our staff.

Their daughter, Phoebe, was born prematurely and to thank our neonatal team for their compassionate care at the time, the family asked for donations instead of presents at Phoebe’s christening. With the donation, our neonatal intensive care unit has been able to purchase several positioning aids; these will be a massive help for the development of the sick and premature babies in their care, as they’re key for comfort and stability.

Sarah Gardner, Staff Nurse in the Emergency Department at Preston, is undertaking a series of fundraising activities – including a sponsored walk between Chorley District Hospital and Royal Preston Hospital; a skydive; bake sales; car boot sales; a speed dating event; and even competing in the Miss Preston final, all to raise money for Variety, which helps sick, disadvantaged and disabled children across the UK. A fantastic effort for a great cause – keep up the good work, Sarah!

Hello my name is…

Lucina

Advanced Bobath course Our neurological rehabilitation unit has organised and hosted an external course on the Bobath Concept approach. The problem solving approach looks at the assessment and treatment of individuals with disturbances of function, movement and postural control due to lesions of the central nervous system. The course itself involved lectures, patient demonstrations and patient treatment sessions and was delivered by three highly-skilled physiotherapists, who are internationally and nationally renowned tutors of the concept. Over four days, the aim was to further develop the knowledge and skills of highly specialist physiotherapists and occupational therapists who work in the field of neurological rehabilitation and within our hospitals. From this, our team now have a wealth of enhanced knowledge on hand to impart on new staff and ultimately benefit our patients on the pathway from treatment to outcome.

We recently took delivery of a brand-new wireless childbirth simulator in the Simulation Suite at the Health Academy. The simulator, called Lucina, is one of the most advanced of its kind and has created the potential to offer multidisciplinary training for obstetricians, midwives, anaesthetics and theatre staff.

Lucina offers realistic training for all stages of birth delivery and has a wide range of pre-programmed emergency obstetric complication scenarios.

Whilst primarily designed as an Obstetrics & Gynaecology training mannequin this unit is adaptable and can also be used for various levels of speciality training including pre and post graduate medical, surgery, nursing and midwifery staff as well as allied health professional (AHP) training.

The purchase of Lucina was only possible due to a generous grant awarded by the Preston Postgraduate Medical Education Charity Trustees.

For further information on Training available, please contact the Simulation Team on 01772 524850, or email Lancashire.Simulation@LTHTR.nhs.uk.

Heroes by name, heroes by nature Our neurosurgery department have received an incredibly generous donation of £10,000. Last February, one of their patients, Ben King, sadly passed away from an inoperable brain tumour aged 27. Since the age of five, Ben had suffered from a kidney disease and despite undergoing a transplant at 17, his new kidney began to fail in 2014 and shortly after, our doctors discovered the tumour. Before his passing, Ben decided that he wanted to leave a legacy behind that helped people in a similar situation in the future. In 2014, Ben set up BK’s Heroes, to support brain and kidney research charities and to raise awareness on the different diseases.

Since then, Ben and his family and friends have rasied thousands of pounds in their mission to help researchers find a cure or more treatment options.

Recently, Ben’s parents, Fiona and Dave King, paid a visit to our hospitals to hand over their amazing gift in an event at our Health Academy.

In conjunction with the University of Central Lancashire, our research fellows will now be able to gain a better understanding of brain tumours, which will ultimately lead to earlier diagnosis and better outcomes in the future.

Professor of Neuro-oncology, Charles Davies, said: “When we started the research fund at Preston, our vision was to bridge the gap between basic science at the university, clinical work, and the community, bringing them all together under one roof for the benefit of our patients. We are proud of our research, which can only continue with the generosity of charities, like BK’S Heroes, who make a vital contribution”.

Published!

Kay Cartwright, our Medical Education Manager, has written a paper that has been published in MedEdPublish! The paper, titled “Twelve Tips to implement Curriculum Changes in times of Economic Austerity”, can be read at https://www.mededpublish.org/ manuscripts/881/v1.

Congratulations, Kay!

Connect Magazine Summer 2017

We’ve signed up to the Caring For You Charter We’re working with the Royal College of Midwives to improve the support available for midwives and maternity colleagues.

Our maternity services have signed-up to the RCM’s Caring for You Charter, which aims to improve the health, safety and wellbeing of maternity staff. This supports and enables them to continue providing the highest levels of maternity care for women, babies and their families.

When signing the charter, organisations are committing to five key principles: • Work in partnership with the RCM Health and Safety Representative to develop and implement an action plan about health, safety and wellbeing issues that are important to the maternity workforce and maternity service users.

• Ensure that midwives and maternity support workers have access to a variety of shift patterns and flexible working and promote a positive workplace culture around working time including taking breaks.

• Foster a positive working environment for all by signing up to the RCM/RCOG statement of commitment calling for zero tolerance policy on undermining and bullying behaviours.

• Enable midwives and maternity support workers to access occupational health and other organisational policies for their mental and physical health, safety and wellbeing.

• Nurture a compassionate and supportive workplace that cares for midwives and maternity support workers so that they can care for women and their families.

Signing this Charter really underlines our commitment to our staff, and we’re thrilled to be a part of it!

The Pyjama Fairies helping our patients sparkle Ward 8 has received a very kind donation from the Pyjama Fairies of specially-designed pyjamas for our patients.

The pyjamas have poppers on the seams that can be opened and then reclosed around any wires or tubing, which make them more appropriate and more comfortable for a hospital stay.

comfortable. Their pyjamas are designed with a front opening to make dressing easier and to allow ease of access for medical professionals – and they’re made of bright, fun fabrics, too.

The Pyjama Fairies do a great job to improve our young patient’s experience while in hospital, and we’re incredibly grateful for their donation!

The Pyjama Fairies are a charity dedicated to making children’s stay in hospital more

Mental Health First Aid courses Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is an internationally recognised two day training course, designed to teach people how to spot the signs and symptoms of mental ill health and provide help on a first aid basis.

The training has been designed to fit into four manageable chunks: what is mental health; suicide and depression; anxiety, eating disorders and self harm; and psychosis. The course gives a deeper understanding of the issues that impact on and relate to people’s mental health, and teaches practical skills that

can be used every day, including being able to spot the signs and symptoms of mental health issues.

Courses are £25, and are being run on the 15th & 16th August, 10th & 11th October and 7th & 8th November at Preston hospital, and 12th & 13th September and 7th & 8th December at Chorley hospital.

Contact Emma Glynn on 01772 528463 or at emma.glynn@lthtr.nhs.uk to book onto a course.

A lovely Thank-You letter to “Team Breast Clinic Chorley” “Dear Sara, Jane, and ‘Team Breast Clinic Chorley”, begins a lovely letter of recognition sent by Valerie Reddecliffe, “just to send a big, big thank you to each and everyone of you for all your expertise and support during my latest cancer scare.” She goes on to say how much support was given to her by our staff and reassuring it was hearing Sara’s voice on the phone while in Australia and New Zealand; and how she has not been faced with any waiting delays and has been seen almost immediately on time. “From my visit in December, to remove the suspect duct, through to my mastectomy,

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it has taken just over a month. In view of the current criticism of the NHS, this is something the media should know about! You deserve a national award! The dedication of everyone involved in the team is second to none. Once you step inside the unit, a feeling of safety puts all fears to rest. I know that I am in safe and expert hands.”

Well done to everyone involved in her care – you’ve obviously made a huge impression and a big difference. In her own words: “you are all very special and much appreciated.”

A cracking donation!

We’d like to say a huge thank you to BAe Systems, who donated over 100 Easter eggs for the patients and relatives of our Cancer Centre and Ribblesdale Ward!

President-elect Munavvar

Preparing for a mass-casulty event We recently ran an exercise to do a table top test of the effectiveness of our mass casualty plan. A mass casualty event is considered to be an event where there are casualties in the hundredss, which would have a significant and sustained impact onour organisation. Our mass casualty plan differs from the major incident plan in two ways: • A Command and Control tier in the Emergency Department consisting of ED, anaesthesiologists, surgical, orthopaedics, paediatrics, and a co-ordinator for rapid senior decision making; • A Command and Control tier in Theatres consisting of anaesthesiologists, critical care, surgical, orthopaedics, and a co-ordinator for rapid senior decision making, pastoral support and coordination of care.

The learning objectives for the exercise were: To develop a better understanding of the processes involved in dealing with mass casualties and how these can be modified and improved; of the communication challenges that will be faced in managing this number of severely injured patients; and the clinical challenges that will be present in the face of an overwhelming number of severely injured patients.

Dr Mohammed Munavvar, our Respiratory Consultant, has been appointed the PresidentElect of the European Association of Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology.

The internet: more than just cat pictures We’ve recently run a telemedicine video clinic as part of a myeloma trial. Running for 12 weeks, the trial allowed patients to attend consultations at our hospital while the Consultant Haematologist was based in Blackpool.

This initiative has been described as the future of outpatient clinics, as it allows clinical staff to work more efficiently and provides benefits for patients.

He has been working as the Secretary of the EABIP for the past two years, and was elected to the post of President-Elect in March. In this role, he will be responsible for driving and coordinating educational and research initiatives, in conjunction with other members of the executive committee. Dr Munavvars’ appointment means that we will be collaborating globally with the World Association of Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology, and it also provides exciting opportunities for collaborative research across organisations within Europe. This is the first time that a UK Chest Physician has been appointed to this post, which is a huge achievement, so congratulations Dr Munavvar!

Our research and innovation is improving the lives of patients in very real ways, and this is a fantastic example! Keep up the good work team!

On fire with our ideas The very deserving winners of our Dragons’ Den style, Lancashire Lair competition have had their stand-out ideas chosen to be supported and implemented. The competition and our Executive Directors invited members of staff from across our hospitals to submit applications for ideas that would improve the quality of care we provide, streamline our processes and services, and enhance our working lives. Similar to Dragons’ Den, successful applicants then had to give a 10 minute presentation to our panel of judges. Our Matron in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Joanne Smith, and Joanna Earle, our Senior Sister in the Emergency Department, are now working towards getting their projects underway.

Joanne melted the hearts of our executive team with her lovely request to upgrade the parent facilities and staff room on the unit.

Making sure our hardworking Neonatal staff and the families in their care are comfortable and well-looked after is Joanne’s main priority and reason for asking to update their current facilities, as there is limited space and outdated,

worn-out furniture being used at present. To complete the project, our staff will be working in collaboration with Interior Design students at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), who have very kindly offered their skills and services to create the perfect space for everyone on our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Joanna decided she wanted to set up a ‘swap shop’ for staff across our departments and wards to ensure that all disposable equipment is being used before its sell-by-date. With an aim of setting up a network for our staff, Joanna is now looking to create a classified website. On there, staff can advertise equipment that is coming to the end of its shelf life, and swap it with a member of staff who can make instant use of it and trade equipment of a similar value- without any effect on their budget. Our executive team were very impressed by Joanna’s thrifty thinking, as it will help us to save across different areas, including waste. Fantastic ideas, well done to both of you!

Running the Paris Marathon for Ward 24 Andrew Sissons recently ran the Paris Marathon in memory of his mother-in-law, Denise Molyneux, who worked on ward 24 until she passed away recently .

He had hoped to raise £2000 to donate to the ward, which would be used to buy equipment, and smashed his goal with a final total of £2124!

Denise was a much-loved friend to many on the ward, as well as a wonderful colleague, and is sorely missed. We’re extremely grateful to Andy for the donation – we’re sure Denise would be thrilled to be remembered in this way!

Connect Magazine Summer 2017

24 Hours in…Maternity Services A mini-series that showcases and celebrates the people behind the uniform. Watch it on “View” our brand new media player found on the intranet home page.

Every single day and around the clock our staff and teams deliver great care and we’re taking a unique look at the people who make our services great. The first area featured in our exciting new project was Maternity services.

This project has been created by our in-house Blended Learning Team and the Leadership and Organisational Development team and they wanted to create a feel good factor in the organisation and help create more awareness about the different types of roles in our organisation. The NHS and our organisation is facing increasing demand on its services,hardly a day goes by without the NHS facing criticism or scrutiny in the press. It can be easy to lose sight of the positive impact we make on a daily basis and we don’t always take time to recognise or celebrate all the great things we do.

In our Staff Survey results and Big Conversations staff said they wanted to do more to celebrate

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and recognise our staff. Staff also said we could do more to improve awareness of other roles.

We then created ‘24 hours in…’ which is a multimedia project which aims to celebrate the people and teams that make our organisation a great place to work.

Helen Thomas and Tracey Heyes are both midwives who work at Preston and rotate through delivery suite, ante-natal wards and post-natal wards. Hear Helen talk about what it’s like to be a newly qualified midwife and find out from them what makes their work unforgettable.

This project is a first for the organisation and we used a combination of locked off cameras, handheld cameras and interviews to create the series of short videos. We hope that this will create a bit of a feel good factor, show how we are all part of the same team and also give a unique insight into our organisation for those considering working here.

Eteyen Adegoke is a junior doctor who works at Preston hospital and Emma Gornall is the delivery suite manager at Preston. Their job can be unpredictable and sometimes they have to deal with serious clinical situations, find out how they work together as a team to respond. Hear about the highs and lows of the job and how they deal with the tough times.

Meet the people from Maternity Linda Draper, Maternity Support Worker and Tricia Leyland, Community Maternity Support worker are both based at our Chorley Birth Centre. Linda works on the wards whilst Tricia supports women in the community;both have worked here a long time and have become good friends. Hear from them about the changes they’ve seen over the years to both our organisation and midwifery services and what it’s like to be a support worker.

Your team could feature in the next series of “24 hours in…”

We’ve already had lots of interest from teams wanting to take part so if your team would also like to feature in our next series then contact Fiona.Yates@lthtr.nhs.uk to register your interest.

Catch it on the View video player on the intranet.

Take Home and Settle Take Home and Settle is a service that we offer to help patients under 75 regain independence following discharge from hospital and to reduce the risk of re-admission. Funded

by Lancashire County Council and the CCG , the service is aimed at our patients who are residents in the local Lancashire areas and have recently been discharged from our hospitals.

The support provided is delivered with respect, dignity and compassion for those who normally live independently when at home.

Services available for immediate emotional and practical help are: Assistance with hospital discharge, including transport home (Mon-Fri 9am-4:30pm) when patient transport isn’t available Initial food shop on discharge from hospital Ensuring a safe home environment Making a drink and preparing a snack Services on a long-term basis are also on offer, with patients being given support with essential tasks, daily living skills, referrals to other sources of help if necessary, and telephone advice.

If you would like to refer a patient to this fantastic service, then please visit their website www.55plus.org.uk and complete an online referral form. Patients under the age of 75 are also eligible for assistance, contact either of these numbers for more information: 01772 552859 (Preston & South Ribble residents) or 01772 552876 (Chorley & West Lancs residents).

Flu fighters!

The winners of 2016-17's flu campaign have been drawn! Receiving certificates from our Director of Nursing & Midwifery, Gail Naylor, each individual, team and department who reached our 75% vaccination target has been recognised for taking part in the campaign and becoming Flu Fighters for our staff and patients.

2016-17's overall winner was our Capacity Management Team, who have been awarded £2000 to improve their staff facilities. The 10 individual winners of an extra day's annual leave were: • Anna Newnham • Alison Potter • Rachel Waring • Lorraine Wright • Karen Morgan • Kirstie Storey • Gordon Oates • Babylyn Williamson • Sarah Atkinson • Stephanie Osborne

Ask Emma

The Gift of Sight

Emma Dermody, our Lead Clinical Nurse Specialist within our Hospital Alcohol Liaison Service (H.A.L.S), has been selected by the Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA) to be an expert advisor in one of their focus groups, providing advice and guidance from an alcoholrelated point of view. AQuA looks at improving NHS health and care quality for the North West and has asked our hospitals to test out some new measures. In particular, Emma and her project lead, Sarah Emery, have been helping out with a measure that looks at Alcohol Related Liver Disease (ARLD). Emma and Sarah will be holding the focus group with some volunteers, who will explore the ARLD measure in detail and report back to AQuA with their findings.

Our Consultant Ophthalmologist, Shveta Bansal, has secured a fantastic funding grant of £47,750 from Baby Beat’s funding committee. With this generous donation, our hospitals will now be able to purchase a highly-sought after retinal imaging machine.

The machine itself, called a Retcam, uses a highly-specialised camera to take digital images of the retina in premature babies, who are at risk of developing a sight-threatening conditionknown as Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) - if they’re below a certain birth weight. Sadly, failure to diagnose and treat this condition in a timely manner results in blindness.

The teams and departments who reached the target this year were: • Pain Management • Diabetes • Capacity Management • Nursing Directorate • Workforce and Education • Integrated Nutrition and Communication Team • Dermatology • Specialist Mobility Rehabilitation Centre • Ophthalmology • Core Outpatients • Assessment and Ambulatory Care • Ward 2a, Ward 11, Ward 19, Ward 20 • Maternity Ward Preston • Chorley Birth Centre • Coronary Care Unit Preston • Major Trauma Ward • Communications Well done to all who took part in this year's flu campaign and to our deserving winners!

With this incredible new machine, we will now be able to take digital images of the retina on site and send them on to treatment centres for a second opinion, avoiding the need for a trip there in most cases, which is often traumatic and difficult for both babies and parents. In addition to this, images taken with the Retcam will be on file for comparison purposes, allowing our staff to track the condition’s progression and aid in a resolution, which will be extremely useful as a visual tool when explaining the situation to families. Amazing, well done, Shveta!

Connect Magazine Summer 2017

Happy retirement

The clinic started in 2010 and is now in its seventh year; in that time, a total of 9964 were investigated and treated on the same day as their referral. Of these, 9210 (92.5%) did not need acute surgical admissions, and 754 (7.5%) needed acute admission and treatment.

A patient satisfaction survey revealed that patients are happy to wait longer in the SAU and have their investigations completed within a day, rather than attending further clinics until a final management plan is reached.

The SAU has saved 9210 bed days, which equates to around £1 million a year in savings each year for our organisation.

Nita Desai, one of our Equality and Diversity Champions, would like to offer support to any colleagues who have any issues or feel like they are not being treated fairly. Nita has worked here for 31 years, and says “I have seen many changes throughout my time here that enable me to listen to and support others, and many colleagues have found value in my opinion and support.” Email Nita.Desai@lthtr. nhs.uk or call 07702 142031.

Got a story?

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To take advantage of this innovative new way to help you save for the future, go to www.joinsquirrel.com/NHS. E • PLE CL

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If you have a story for Connect magazine, please email: Helen.Lea@lthtr.nhs.uk

We’ve teamed up with Squirrel, a money management company, to give you access to their savings, budgeting, and bill management tool - all for free! Their app is designed to help you get financially organised by making saving easy, organising your money, and allowing you to take control of how you get paid.

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This is a fantastic achievement, and other departments have made arrangements to introduce the same system. It would not have been possible without the close cooperation and dedication of the Pathology and Radiology departments; something that is recognised and very much appreciated.

Help and advice from an Equality and Diversity champion

Squirrel your money away…

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The Surgical Hot Clinic, run by Mr PT Thomas, Surgeon, and Karen Clayton, Assistant Nurse Practitioner, is designed to reduce referred emergency surgical admissions, and to reduce strain on finance and resources; making beds available for more serious emergency surgical cases.

Ingrid Saul, one of our specialist vascular nurses has retired after 40 years in the NHS. She started her career as a pre-nursing student, and spent 33 years working at Royal Preston Hospital. Ingrid was instrumental in the establishment of the nurse led clinics within the vascular department and has worked tirelessly in supporting the patients and their relatives over the years. Ingrid celebrated her retirement with family, friends and colleagues on two separate occasions and is now looking forward to spending more time with her family and new granddaughter.

Ingrid will be greatly missed by her friends and colleagues and she would like to thank everyone for her wonderful send off, gifts and cards and will miss her friends in the unit greatly.

Elaine Lyne, a former midwife, has retired after 51 years’ service in the NHS; 46 of which she spent as a midwife. Elaine has had an astounding career, working mainly on nights; for many years as the delivery suite co-ordinator on nights. After semi retiring seven years ago Elaine returned to work as a midwife and also spent time working at Chorley Birth Centre. She was utterly professional, caring, compassionate and hardworking, and was adored by both the families she cared for and her colleagues – she will be deeply missed.

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Success story for Sau Hot Clinic: a six year review

Have a great retirement, Ingrid!

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This issue’s Star Volunteer is Margaret Dalton.

Margaret is a part of the Friends of Chorley charity, is a friendly, bubbly presence on the wards every week as she hosts a quiz to entertain and delight our patients. Margaret has been volunteering at our hospital for more than 40 years – starting out in hospital radio. The quizzes she does really brighten up our patient’s day, and the wards just wouldn’t be the same without her!

We’ll miss you, Elaine!

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Star Volunteer of the month

Connect Magazine is printed on sustainably resourced paper