As part of
Mental Health Day on 10 October, we’re continuing in our series of blogs from our Primary
Care Mental Health IAPT Partnership (Leeds IAPT) service. You can see more
about them on our website.
Dawn Woollin,
Clinical Team Manager, talks about an average day…
No two days
are ever the same for me and that’s the great enjoyment in my daily work.
Although I might have weekly meeting commitments and plans with staff, the
daily routine is never identical and needs to be flexible to cope with the
changing demands of the day. Whilst I do everything possible to plan, there’s
always something that changes and I prepare myself to be adaptable every day.
I did some
work on the waiting list management this morning. This has been a large piece
of work I’ve undertaken recently to improve the waiting times for clients of
the service and has involved regularly meeting with the administrators to
trouble shoot problems which affect waiting times. There is a high demand for
our service and we need to work out ways in which clients can receive their
treatment as quickly as possible. I feel like a “dog with a bone” about the
waiting list management. It’s important to me that we see people as quickly as
possible and anything that gets in the way of that needs addressing and ironing
out so that we continue to be accessible. When I’ve chewed that bone down as
far as I can, I’ll be happy.
There was
some routine admin to catch up on, of which there seems to be much; it can feel
overwhelming at times but I’m someone who works methodically, so prioritising
and taking one thing at a time works well. I also did a return to work
discussion with a staff member who was ill last week and was glad to have her
back in work this week. I do place a great deal of importance on staff welfare
and have always held the principle that if you treat staff well and fairly,
they in turn do their work to the most effective level possible.
After this I
headed over to meet with the Service Manager, the Business Development Lead,
and our Performance Officer, regarding our Estates strategy as part of the
wider Service Review. Some proposals have been put forward which mean we need
to think about how we utilise the rooms we need for both clinical work and
administrative purposes. The meeting was extremely helpful in focusing us on
what we require and how we sit within the wider organisation. I like thinking
creatively and find that solutions to difficulties come more easily if there’s
a little thinking time – not something we always have the luxury of, but this
meeting did.
There are
many facets to being a Manager in PCHM and I hope this has given just a small
idea of an average day if indeed there is such a thing as an average day!
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