Kettering General Hospital (KGH) has launched a new Group Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professionals Strategy.
The collaboration has been launched by Leanne Hackshall, Director of Nursing and Quality at KGH and Sheran Oke, Director of Nursing, Midwifery and Patient Services at Northampton General Hospital (NGH).
The University Hospitals of Northamptonshire NHS group is made up of Kettering General Hospital and Northampton General Hospital, after a new group model was introduced in 2020.
When working on the strategy, nurses, midwives, and AHPs, were inspired to create the Vision of Inspiring Care Excellence or VoICE, to improve the culture of care at the trust.
Leanne Hackshall, Director of Nursing and Quality at KGH, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate our staff and the hard work they have continued to deliver over the past year. I am acutely aware how tough the last year has been for the NHS and our staff. It’s taken a real toll on everyone, but through the pandemic, we have seen some excellent work being achieved.”
A raft of ‘excellence values’ are set out in the strategy, with five core principles: respect, compassion, integrity, courage, and accountability. The new strategy is one of seven strategies that form the basis of the overall group strategy.
By 2024, the trust is aiming to be the first group hospital to achieve ‘Pathway to Excellence’ designation across both sites. The five key priorities that will support the Pathway to Excellence journey, include Safety Quality, Leadership, Wellbeing, Professional Development, and Shared Decision Making.
The trust boards will also receive written updates from Nursing, Midwifery and AHP Strategy Delivery every six months.
Alongside the strategy, a new campaign has been set up called “More than my band”, to tackle staff concerns about the language used in the trust.
Leanne Hackshall said: “It’s a campaign that looks at and challenges the language we use around our trust. Colleagues may address each other according to their band. This is not a conscious decision for most, but a ‘learned’ language. They might talk about something being the responsibility of the band 7 or that their band 3 admin can pick up that piece of work
“Being addressed by your job band is a learned language that we want to stop at KGH. We are all so much more than that”, says Leanne. “This will benefit our staff and our patients.”
The strategy can be read online, here.
In other news, Kettering General Hospital was most recently rated by the Care Quality Commission, as “requires improvement”.
