Need to know
For #TeamEEAST Last updated: 18 May 2024 at 06:27
Welcome to another episode of the Fit for the Future podcast.
This month, we talk to EEAST Chair Nicola Scrivings, about the Fit for the Future Fortnight.
Episode transcript
[Sean Bennett] Hello and welcome to this very special episode of our Fit for the Future podcast. This month we’re kicking off our Fit for the Future Fortnight by taking a moment to take a broader look at the project, where we are and where we’re going. So, this month I’m joined by Nicola Scrivings, the Chair of the Trust, and as ever, Julie Hollings, Director of Communications and Engagement and so I will hand over to Julie to get the interview started.
[Julie Hollings] Thank you Sean, thank you for a great introduction as always and I'm really pleased to be talking to Nicola today. So, I'm just going to start off Nicola by asking you, what is your vision for the future of EEAST?
[Nicola Scrivings] Oh thank you Julie, it's a good place to start. Just my initial answer is around the big overriding vision for EEAST is providing outstanding care with exceptional people every hour of every day. But what does that really mean to people? It's a bit corporate speak isn't it. Well for me it's a place that we're all really proud of and so in in the future what I really want for EEAST is to be a place where work is satisfying, challenging and rewarding, but at the same time predictable and people feel supported and it's reasonable work, which is all wrapped around fantastic patient care and that for me would be a place where I would be very proud to work and I know I would like everybody else to feel the same way.
So what does that mean in practice, what would people see or feel in the workplace? So, I think what I'm hoping for in our vision is a place where colleagues come together to solve problems that might be in clinical delivery, or it might just be in the way that work is organized in this station. It's much less top-down instruction and it's much more around how can I solve this problem. Another example might be an environment where everyone's views and experiences are really important and helpful to each other and there's high levels of respectful supportive challenge to find brilliant solutions. Of course, there'd be jobs and days that are really about a fair day's work which are organized well with predictable structures and predictable ends of shift times. But also putting the patient at the centre of everything that we do, there would be much more fluidity across the patient experience, we'd always find the right advice, and the right advice that would be easy to find and the right pathway for the patient, that means our patients have a great outcome, every day, every time. Going right back to that vision that we are providing outstanding care for our patient’s, with exceptional people every hour of every day.
[Julie Hollings] Thank you Nicola, thank you that was a great vision that you spelled out there, very exciting for us. How do you see Fit for the Future fitting in with that vision?
[Nicola Scrivings] Well it’s such an important program for us because Fit for the Future provides the overarching improvement program for the Trust to gather around and to galvanize and to set our priorities. And it's all focused to make sure that we continue to improve the experience of our staff and our patients. Wrapped around that it’s really focused upon improving our culture and our service. This program has been developing for the last year and will take us through the next three to five years.
[Julie Hollings] Some people might say, or might think, that Fit for the Future is quite high level, maybe something just for the board or for senior management, what would you say to that?
[Nicola Scrivings] I'd say that was wrong. Fit for the Future is a program of work that works right across the organization and will have an effect on every single colleague within our organization. It will make a real difference to our patients and our people by delivering focus upon core group cause issues, so that the change that we put in place are sustainable and long-term. It is a three-to-five-year program, but it is also about making an impact on people's daily working lives.
[Julie Hollings] So can Fit for the Future really make a difference to people's everyday working lives and if so, how?
[Nicola Scrivings] Yeah, I really think it can, that's the purpose, that’s the reason why we're so invested in delivering on our own commitments here. If I can give you an example, one of the components of the program is around investing in our leadership. We all know the importance of great leadership, you know to have a leader and colleagues who are authentic, professional, and accountable and trusted, it is so profound for us because I believe that we're all better at our jobs when we are well led. I also believe that we are more satisfied in our roles when we are well led and it's certain that our patients have better outcomes when we are well led.
So, the importance of good leadership and investing in the development, investing in our colleagues’ skills and professionalism is such an important part of the Fit for the Future program, because we all want to work in a great team that all makes us feel better about our lives. It gives us energy and it makes us more optimistic, and it needs us wanting more and so that's why I believe as an example investing in Fit for the Future will make a difference to everybody's working lives.
[Julie Hollings] Thank you. How will we know for sure that the future really is making a difference?
[Nicola Scrivings] Well we have to listen to people, we have to take feedback from people so that we can hear the experiences of everybody in the organization and we have to do surveys so that we can understand the wider impacts of our work in terms of people's feedback to us in the pulse survey, and we measure ourselves against the dashboard of performance indicators so that we can track that improvement over time.
Of course, one of the most important pieces of the data and information we can take back is our staff survey and that builds upon our pulse surveys as well, and it's great to see that the staff survey is currently out with all the colleagues to take that feedback and I'd really urge people to fill them in if the survey is still open.
[Julie Hollings] That all sounds really good Nicola, really inspiring but can we really make space for this? Is it a priority given the huge operational challenges that we face?
[Nicola Scrivings] Yeah thanks for that question, Julie because it is a challenge for everybody involved in the program to balance the time commitment to delivering on this change program, whilst also delivering in really challenging operational performance times. But if we don't grasp this opportunity now to change our structures, our ways of working, our relationships with each other, we will not achieve our goals of embedding and sustaining the change that we all want for EEAST.
Things like, for example, the partnerships work stream, which includes a brand-new clinical strategy that's been worked through with our partners, will aim to help to keep more people from being conveyed to emergency departments, by working with partners on directing people towards more appropriate care.
Now that's the benefit for patients, there’s also benefit for colleagues, it's also a benefit for our system partners. So, taking the time now to properly work these things through, whilst we're also dealing with the day-to-day challenge is really vital for us for our future success.
[Julie Hollings] Thank you Nicola, I've really enjoyed our conversation and I hope everybody listening has done as well. And just as a reminder to everybody out there, you can listen to our monthly podcast and you can read our monthly blog and they're both available on Need to Know, so thank you.
Published 7th November 2022