The business of delivering specialist services

Meet Dan, he’s the Business Manager for our specialist services which are healthcare services for specialist communities (such as prisoners, detainees in custody, the homeless and asylum seekers), or specialist conditions (such as dental, podiatry, MSK, healthy living, mental health).

Dan has shared with us what his role as a business manager entails…

Dan collecting an award at the
LCH Achievement Awards in 2014.

Tell us, what does your job involve?

I am a key link for our services with commissioners. I ensure we have fair contracts that are value for money, that are well specified and that have effective and realistic performance measures. I help services compete for new business or compete to retain their existing business when it goes out to tender. I manage the innovation and business change functions so that services are supported to innovate, improve and embed any changes.

What attracted you to this role?

I've always worked in healthcare and had got into quite strategic roles which felt detached from services and real people. I saw this role advertised and had worked with York Street Practice in a past life and had enjoyed it so I thought I would give it a go. It's a very busy and challenging role, I've never worked so hard in my life! However, it is extremely rewarding as I can see how I am impacting on healthcare for real people despite not being a clinician myself.

What is the best bit about doing your job?

No day is the same. I get to go all over the city, meeting all sorts of people. I'm often working with services that have problems but this doesn't get me down as I feel that I am helping them overcome issues or barriers.

Do you have a particular highlight from your career to date?

I think it was when we won the very first NHSE 'Excellence in Public Participation' award last year. It was for a piece of work where we collaborated with homeless and asylum seeker clients at York Street Practice to improve how they access services and as part of this we won some funding so that patients could use digital technology to manage their own healthcare. When we went to collect the award for this innovation we got to take service users with us. It was extremely powerful and so rewarding to have national acclaim for what was essentially a very simple project. Also when we won the police custody bids it was so exciting - it was hard to believe that months of hard work and late nights had paid off and it made me extremely proud to work for LCH and to have been part of that team.

How has your past experience helped with your role?

I did a Communications degree back in the day so people often think it's weird I've ended up with the job that I do in the NHS. However, the key competency I need for my day to day working is communication skills and the ability to form effective relationships, so perhaps it wasn't such a waste of time after all! I also did a lot of voluntary caring roles at university which made me realise early on that I wanted a career in the NHS and not in the cut throat media industry!

If someone was thinking of joining the trust in a similar role, what advice would you give them?

Regardless of whether a role in LCH is clinical or managerial we need people who have the right values and who have good people skills - if this is you then do come and work for us. We can train people in all manner of skills and knowledge areas but we cannot train you in the values - this has to be core to you. If you have our values then get in touch!

If you would like to join our team, click here for our latest roles being advertised. 

Meet our members: Lynda Cooper

Lynda is one of our members who has been volunteering at the tea parties at both South Leeds Independence Centre (SLIC) and the Community Intermediate Care Unit (CICU). Lynda wrote this post as she has been particularly struck by her involvement and the work that those at the centres do.  

Andrew and Lynda

"I can remember my first visit to SLIC so clearly.  I was welcomed by Chloe, membership and involvement officer, who introduced me to Andrew, the centre manager.  Andrew chatted about the set up of the building and very kindly took us on a tour.  The facilities were excellent and very much aimed at making the patients stay as comfortable as possible, whilst also maintaining a positive environment to enable improvement in their physical wellbeing.

 The staff are amazing, they are very busy individuals but they never let it get in the way of keeping a cheerful persona.  The patience and care given is beyond anything I have seen in hospital wards for the elderly in the city.

I personally find it very enjoyable talking to the patients at the tea parties and it gives us all the  chance to chat to someone new, even if only for a short while.  I feel we are being given an opportunity to make a difference to the patients stay by introducing new interests.  The Steering Group is soon to meet at the centre to discuss what initiatives might be welcomed by both staff and patients to improve their stay.

I think there is an opportunity to involve members of LCH and the community to spend some time visiting the centre.  There are surely a lot of people out there who would enjoy and indeed benefit from visiting the patients.  I also think the time is right to give the local community encouragement to become involved.  Perhaps children at the local schools could in agreement with the Head of the school be asked to visit the centre, both age groups could benefit from the visits and it would ensure that the young ones realise how valuable, knowledgeable and entertaining elderly people can be. 

Maybe there is a need for climate change in the way the elderly are perceived, people now go on about how people are living longer and therefore increasing the cost to the NHS. Perhaps people need to start talking about our elderly who have worked hard all their lives in much less lugubrious surroundings and circumstances, with far less opportunities, and yet seem to be ignored and undervalued by the younger generations."

Lynda Cooper

I get by with a little help from my friends

Recently I became a Dementia Friend.

Su McAlpin, Dementia Friends Champion at
LCH with 'Gina'  

I have a personal interest in the Dementia Friends campaign but in my role of Communications officer at Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, I went along to one of the trust's training sessions to see what it involves and how we could help promote the campaign internally to colleagues.

On arriving at the session, I explained to the leaders I was there from a ‘comms perspective’ and said I would sit to one side so not to disrupt the session. I was encouraged to take part; I didn’t realise anyone could become a Dementia Friend, you don’t need to be a healthcare professional. The awareness is useful, regardless of whether you’re at work or doing the weekly shop.

The training session is just an hour long but gives you a really good insight in to what things we can do to make our community dementia friendly. There are lots of great analogies that help you to understand what it can be like for a person with dementia. For example, you’re walking in to a health centre and there is a black mat at the entrance. You would cross the mat, enter the building and go on to attend your appointment. To a person with dementia, they may see the mat as a black hole and don’t want to step on to it for fear of falling in to it. This could make them scared to access the building and prevent them from going to their appointment.

After talking to the trust’s Dementia Friends Champion, Su McAlpin, I found out that around 100 of the trust’s front of house staff have been trained as Dementia Friends recently with more to follow. They’re the first people that greet patients so it’s important they recognise the signs and know how to support someone. Su is running a number of training sessions internally and also externally - recently, she spoke to a local Beavers group. We’re also looking at all our buildings to make sure they are dementia friendly too.

The campaign is aiming to create 1 million dementia friends by 2015. You don’t need to go along to a session, you can also sign up to be a dementia friend online at www.dementiafriends.org.uk 

Let’s all help to make Leeds a dementia friendly community!

Sarah Elwell, Communications officer

@LCHNHSTrust 

#DementiaFriends

Helping people to live independently

Debbie Slater is currently a community nurse. She first worked for the trust whilst on placement and enjoyed it so much, she wanted to return...

“I’m passionate about community services because
I help support people to live independently
in their own homes and live a fuller life as possible.”

"When I was a student nurse, I worked with the Intermediate Care Unit (ICT). It was one of the areas I enjoyed most and learnt a lot from. Once qualified, I wanted to return as a permanent part of a rehabilitation team. For the first two years after qualifying I worked at St James Hospital on an acute medical ward before joining the trust’s Intermediate Care Unit (ICT).

I wanted to work for ICT so I could experience a different type of nursing and for me, being in the community meant I could get to know patients better because they were in their own homes.

A typical day for me involves going to the office in the morning, where I will find out which patients need to be seen and what referrals have been sent in. I will then discuss and plan the day with my nursing colleagues and the Multi-Disciplinary Teams. The rest of the day I will be out in the community visiting patients. Sometimes I will have to rearrange visits through the depending on whether I get a call about new referrals or patients that need to be seen quickly. Being a community nurse allows me to work independently, however I know I can discuss any issues that have cropped up with the rest of the team, and normally have a debrief once I return to the office at the end of the day.  

For me there are many rewarding parts to my role including; preventing admission to hospital by picking up on a patient becoming unwell early, helping people recently discharged from hospital to stay at home or assisting people as they adjust from being dependant on staff to living independently.

I enjoy the variety the day brings, every patient and situation is different, I never know what I will find when I arrive to do a visit."  

A passion for community services

Our staff are passionate about providing community services. Andrea is a nursing sister at HMP Leeds and tell us about her career to date...

Andrea Copeland 

"I qualified as a nurse in 1995 and started my carer in offender health six months later. I have worked in a variety of prison settings high secure, YOI female and currently local category B.

I remember seeing an advert in the Nursing Times for nurses working in a prison in London. I had never thought of nursing in a prison, my morbid curiosity led me to apply. When considering my career path I always considered police, probation or social work so it's no surprise I ended up working in the arena of offender health

My friends and family were quite shocked when I told them I wanted to work in prison healthcare, particularly the male side of my family. Of course, their impression of prison was influenced by what they'd seen on the TV or read in the news, and they were worried about my safety and the possibility of prisoners behaving inappropriately towards me. In fact, I'd say you're safer in prison than you are on the streets. Sometimes you get prisoners making gestures or being suggestive, but I'm a female in a male prison and you get the same on hospital wards.

Our role here means we can not only make a difference to individual’s lives but the extended family and even society itself by hopefully assisting in the reduction of offending. We have close partnership working with the prison and play a key role in the resettlement and rehabilitation agenda. Assisting changes to someone’s health plays a key part in enabling offenders to leave prison having addressed their health needs and enter society in a stable and less chaotic state. We ensure systems and support are in place.

We have the difficult task of looking after some of the most damaged and vulnerable people in society. People for whom trust is difficult to do as, they have often been let down by the people that should matter the most in their lives. Engaging our clients takes excellent communication skills, patience and empathy.

I have worked for Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust for three years; it is currently a very exciting time to be part of the trust. Our offender health pathway is expanding, we currently care for prisoners at HMP Leeds ,HMP Wealstun and HMYOI Wetherby. And we have recently secured the contract for police custody in West and South Yorkshire. There are a number of challenges in my role. One of the biggest is finding a way to provide our services in an environment driven by security and discipline. We have to abide by prison timetables and we can't always see a patient we might want to have access to immediately

If asked to describe a typical day I couldn't as no day is the same! I have stayed in this arena of nursing for 19 years so it can’t be that bad! Everyday is different, within the routine of clinics, screening, triage, chronic health conditions and health promotion is the unpredictability that working in this environment brings. We are required to attend emergency situations such as serious assaults, injuries, self harm and sadly major life threatening conditions which we have to manage until emergency services can enter the prison

The skill set required in this environment is important however as it so generic you cannot possibly know everything, this is where our close teamwork comes into play. Sharing knowledge and skills is vital and teamwork and supporting each other underpins. Despite the challenges, the work is so rewarding and I really like my job. Prison healthcare staff are sometimes perceived as being inferior to those who work in hospitals or clinics, but this couldn't be further from the truth. I actively chose a career in prison healthcare and my professional experience has grown substantially since I've been working here. You need resilience, patience, a sense of humour, stamina and the ability to be team player is fundamental." 

No two days are the same

Emma Ross is Senior Healthcare Support Worker at Hannah House, she tells us why she loves her role...

“I'm passionate about community services
because no two days are the same.”

"I have worked for the NHS for around six years, four of those have been spent working at Hannah House, where I provide planned or emergency short-break care for children with complex needs. The house is a ‘home from home’ where we provide care for children up to the ages of 19 years. 

Before Hannah House I worked for a community team in Wakefield where I would deliver respite for children with disabilities and complex health care needs within their own home.

I applied for my role at Hannah House as a Senior Healthcare Support Worker because I wanted to work with children in a relaxed home from home setting as I find this type of environment is more comforting for the children and less daunting than the hospital. Also I wanted to work in a team rather than on my own.   

No two days are the same at Hannah House. A typical day will generally involve getting the children who have stayed overnight up and ready for the day, which includes helping them wash and dress and with meals. Through the day, I take care of their personal needs and assist with meeting their healthcare needs as well as spending the day doing various activities and having fun.

I love working at Hannah House. I enjoy spending time interacting with the children and doing activities with them. Every aspect of my role is rewarding but I especially enjoy making the children happy."

A positive impact

Siobhan Jones joined the team at Hannah House at the start of 2014 and has been enjoying it ever since. She explains what led her to work for a community trust... 

"I'm passionate about community services as you
get to see the children in lots of different settings
and work with the families to help build relationships."

"Prior to working at Hannah House I spent 16 years working for Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. I worked on several units predominately supporting adults with a learning disability who also display challenging behaviour. This included working on the assessment and treatment unit, respite unit and working with people during their transition back to the community. I also worked on the respite unit for adults who also have complex health needs.

I applied to work at Hannah House for several reasons, the main one being the opportunity to work with children. Prior to and during my nurse training I worked with children in a variety of settings all of which I found extremely rewarding. Since becoming a mum I have been reminded how enjoyable it is to spend time with children and to help them through the various stages of development. 

Each day at Hannah House is different. Overall a typical day can be broken down into three main areas. The first being the direct contact you have with the child; meeting their needs whether this be personal care, medication, nutrition, in relation to play and stimulation or supporting their method of communication and assessing their health needs and responding appropriately. 

The second concerns communication with others. This may be the family, school, community nurses. It may be carried out on the telephone; obtaining information regarding changes since their last stay or providing others with updates and information e.g. their school. 

The third is looking how things can be done better. This can be reviewing practices and identifying how care can be delivered better at Hannah House. It may involve looking at how we can improve communication between ourselves, the child and others who are involved in the child’s care. It may have a wider scope involving how the services can work better together to provide the most effective and efficient service possible.

Working in a community trust allows me to work with other teams and in different locations, such as in the child's home. This enables me not just to see how the child spends their time at home but helps with building a relationship between myself and the family.

The most rewarding aspect of my role is knowing that something you have done today, however small, has had a positive impact upon the child you are caring for."

Hope in Gipton, hope in Leeds

I recently met with Jane Stageman, who represents Leeds City Council and Becky Malby, director at the Centre for Innovation in Health Management (CIHM) at the University of Leeds. Our aim was to discuss leadership work in the city. The meeting flowed with ideas and visions for the future. I've written this post as a way to recall the discussions and offer them as ways forward to a better, brighter city for all.

Becky shared the work of project called Action for Gipton Elderly which she had recently visited. 

This project seeks to offer support and care for the elderly who live in the Gipton area. It works to make sure elderly people have food in cold icy weather when they cannot venture out. It coordinates a team of volunteers who visit the elderly and it has an arrangement with local fish and chip shops to provide some free meals. The link to health and wellbeing is clear. Elderly people are offered contact and support and loneliness is challenged by community action. Elderly people will have fewer falls and possibly fewer hospital admissions as they won't have to venture outdoors in ice and snow to buy food and milk. They will also have local people to call if they have issues and difficulties. This is real community action in practice. It tells us that people and communities have answers and assets that we need to hear and support. Local answers from local people are a powerful health and wellbeing force. These projects also tell us something about what we human beings can do and be at our best - that we can care, organise and change things. The greatest enemy of human development is the attitude and spirit that says it can't be done or won't work. Projects like this say that it can and is being done, and the effect is the improved health and wellbeing of our elderly people.

The vision we talked of was around the concept of Leeds as an international centre of culture. This discussion led us to ask what 'good culture' or 'best culture' looks like. Is it nice statues or beautiful buildings? Is it well kept parks or first rate arts productions? Of course it is. Yet it has to be something more - something much more. In its last days, Ancient Rome had fine temples, buildings and sports, yet it was collapsing from within. No one was or is suggesting that Leeds is collapsing from within but what we did see in the discussion was that good culture was that which values and inspires people. The best culture is one where people can dream, hope and have compassion.

We have a real need to dream. Albert Einstein, probably the greatest scientist of the 20th century once said that, 'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.' This is so important as it calls us to use our imagination to forge our future and plans. It's not without significance that the great Martin Luther King didn't say 'I have a policy' or 'I have a document', but rather 'I have a dream.' Hope is key too, but what is hope? We venture the answer that hope is the belief that we can work things through and make things better, despite whatever might block us or stand in our way. In the ancient world and in works like Aesop's fables, hope was represented by the swallow. This is because the swallow was seen as one of the first birds that appeared at the end of winter and the start of spring. Lastly is compassion, hearing the call of another and respond from the heart to them in their need. For us to be a centre of culture is to be a city that engenders and inspires these qualities. If we create a city of hope, compassion and imagination, that would be a city where the best in humankind will be at the centre of all we try to do and great culture will be second nature.

We so often hear that a society and humankind can be measured by how it treats its elderly. All across the city, people and communities are committing to projects that place elderly people at their centre. In Beeston, Nicola Dumphy has embarked on a project that supports the people with dementia (and their carers), and aims to build a supportive and connected dementia friendly city. This project will change the experience of living with dementia in Leeds for many by inspiring co-produced services that meet the needs of the city. Projects like these are conceived and thrive on hope, compassion and imagination. In embracing these as a city we can hold our heads high when others, as well as ourselves, look to measure our society and our culture.

The community initiative in Gipton, the commitment to build a dementia friendly city and the vision of good culture for Leeds are part of what this city offers to its people. Leeds is changing all around us. Great people are doing amazing things. This is both a sign and a source of our future. If we can do this now, what else can we achieve in the future? What would our city, a centre of culture look like? We hope this article can be a contribution to why and how we can create those cultures, conversations and communities where people care, hope and dream.

John Walsh, York Street Health Practice

Natalie Leach, Centre For Innovation In Health Management

Jane Stageman, Leeds City Council

No.

On a bus in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama a bus driver ordered a black woman to stand up and give her seat to a white passenger. This was the rule of bus segregation introduced in 1900. The woman, a seamstress called Rosa Parks, looked at the driver and said 'No'. As a result she was arrested and the civil rights movement in the United States developed to a new level. It resulted into a bus boycott that lasted a year. Rosa explained her word, 'I had given up my seat before, but this day, I was especially tired. Tired from my work as a seamstress, and tired from the ache in my heart.' She also said, 'All I was doing was trying to get home from work'.

Rosa's 'No' changed the world. It played a pivotal role in the movement led by Martin Luther King for racial equality and respect. Today where she boarded the bus there is a plaque to Rosa. Her statue is in the US Capitol Building in Washington DC. She received countless awards, met American presidents and had streets named after her. What Rosa symbolises is an ordinary person doing an extraordinary thing. Here was a black woman who said 'No' because her conscience wouldn't allow her to go along any longer with a system that discriminated against people on the basis of their skin colour. Rosa is a call to integrity. Her name is a byword for having principles and holding them when the going gets tough.

Principles and values are what make us what we are. They shape and hold us. There is a saying that says, 'To betray oneself in order not to betray another is the greatest betrayal of all’. This is a very insightful comment. It tells us that there has to be some space or line written within us that is inviolable. This line says that we may compromise on some or even many things but not on this. We all need this line. Without it we have no deep identity. The word integrity comes from the word integer meaning whole or complete. Without integrity we cannot have completeness or wholeness. Without a core set of values or principles we cannot have what we all seek in so many different ways- that sense of oneness, wholeness and completion.

At work and life we can be challenged to go along with things that may conflict with our centre. There is a point when we have to make a stand for what we are. There is a time to say 'No.' Without this possibility we are not really free. We are not of course advocating that people fight everyone and everything. What we do assert is that principles are key and without them and standing for them we find something fundamentally missing in our life and what we can bring to work.

So how do we keep our principles? Rosa's life and words gives us some clues. She didn't go looking for trouble or fights with authority. 'All I was doing was trying to get home from work.'  She had given up her seat before but now knew she couldn't to be true to herself and her values of justice and fairness if she did. A moment may come for us all when we have to make a stand or lose our integrity. Rosa was filled with a sense of what was right. 'You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right',   She also said,  'I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.' This to us adds us to the following. We need to have our core values and know them deeply - not just on an intellectual level but on a intuitional one also. There is nothing wrong with avoiding trouble and confrontation. However if we are faced with a situation where we need to make a stand then we need to do that  - trying to have sensitivity,grace and dignity. There is a moment when the issue that faces us is a values question and our answer is about whether we are true to ourselves or not.

This article is all about Rosa but it's also about you and us. It's about the sort of people we will choose to be. And the sort of people we decide to be is the sort of world we will create for ourselves and others.We started with Rosa and we will finish with Rosa. In doing so we dedicate this piece of writing to her and all the other Rosa's who say 'No' to whatever is wrong in our world. They are the real heroes and heroines. Rosa expresses this better then we ever can. 'Stand for something or you will fall for anything. Today's mighty oak is yesterday's nut that held its ground.'

Lisa Falkingham, Service Improvement Team, Leeds Community Healthcare

John Walsh, York Street Health Practice, Leeds Community Healthcare

Changing Our Minds To Change our Lives

Recently I met with Gill who is the director of Phoenix Health andWellbeing. We were brought together by Jon Woolmore, Chief Executive of Community Links,  who suggested a connection between the work York Street Practice and Phoenix do. Phoenix is a charity that specialises in offering 'high quality relaxing or remedial complementary therapies' which is based in Leeds. Their website explains their ethos and work: 'We are a charity supporting people with mental or physical health issues. We offer counselling and body work therapies to a range of people who are referred to us by medical professionals, mental health support workers or associated charities. These referred clients can have a range of complex needs but many experience low self-esteem, anxiety and social isolation. This can be reflected in their perceptions of themselves, their sense of isolation and level of self-care. The use of counselling and physical treatments provide  real contact with another person in a safe environment enabling the client to experience care and to feel genuinely valued as an individual. By coming along for one of our therapy sessions you are supporting our charitable work'.

We sat in a coffee shop near York Street and talked about what our respective services did and, as always, with these conversations we moved to how we can be part of the work to build best cultures and services in Leeds. Part of this call is to create best conversations. We cannot have best cultures and services if we don't have best conversations. Conversations of listening, learning and birthing new ideas and actions. It's a great sign that these conversations and actions are occurring all over our city. You can't see these networks and movements from a high office window. But they are there. It takes a different sort of seeing to note these and be aware of their power and potency.

We discussed the issues of wellbeing, work stress in life and at work and the necessity of positive spaces in our hectic lives. In this a story was shared. The story was of a trainer who worked with business people. The trainer led a group of business folk into a simple relaxing exercise lasting a few minutes. The aim was to let go, relax and just enjoy the moment. After the exercise a woman in the group said 'This is no use to me. I don't have 5 minutes a day to do this!' This frankly is an amazing statement. It says that we are too busy to relax, chill and give ourselves a few moments of letting go. It reflects how work demands can make us feel we don't even have time to make an instant coffee. We make no judgement on the lady who said this. We do say that if we don't make time for change then change won't ever come. If we wish to find some positive space and peace in our lives the chance is that we will have to make the time and space to do this. It just won't just happen. This has been recognised for a long time. One 16th century spiritual writer, Francisco de Osuna, advised meditating because it provided a refuge when faced with stressful situations. We have to withdraw to go forward.

Maybe one reason we don't change in the ways we wish is that we don't give the change the energy and time required for that change to appear and become stabilised. So is there any hope when we know we need to change but think there's no way we can make the time? We think there is. We need to change our thinking. We need to draw a good inner picture to ourselves of why we want this change, of the benefits and how much better life will be when the changes start coming through. We need to create a vision. A vision that moves us and connects with us. Finding what one writer called 'visional power' is what can start us off wanting the change and wishing to make it happen. This is not something we can just do once then forget. It's something we need to repeat daily so the vision of what we can be starts to grow and conversely we start to grow into that vision. The most powerful cases we have seen of people breaking the addiction to alcohol have not been those who have stopped drinking but rather those who have found a state of sobriety, a positive state of living without drink. This story holds to us the challenge of living in a busy world with so much stress. It also holds to us that we have 'visional power', the power to dream that we can act and live differently and seek the steps for that to happen. The work that Phoenix and York Street do are on the surface quite different  - different client groups, different sectors and different specialisms. Yet in the depths - where it really matters - the work for hope, wellbeing and people feeling better about themselves - it's just the same.

John Walsh, York Street Health Practice
Gill Trevor, Director, Phoenix Health and Wellbeing