Guest blog from Henry Ticehurst, medical director

Dr Henry Ticehurst

I’m on holiday this week so I've asked Henry, our medical director, to do a guest blog. It’s only a few weeks before his retirement, so it makes this one all the more special.

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Dr Henry Ticehurst, medical director:

I’m sat in Stepping Hill Hospital about to see some of my last patients, trying to write a few paragraphs about my time at Pennine Care.

It’s not easy – trying to distil some 20 years in to a blend of anecdote and reflection. In the words of Vinny Jones – it’s been emotional!

The best bit of advice I got, when I was looking for a consultant job, was that colleagues were the most important factor. That still holds true.

My early years in Rochdale, when it was still part of Rochdale Infirmary and pre-Pennine Care, where (and I struggle to believe that I remember this correctly) we had a consultants dining room and the ring of the bell would herald in the next course. I think we live in slightly more egalitarian times now. The dining room went many years ago, probably about the same time as we entered the 21^st century, and the hospital farm was derelict before I came along, along with the insulin coma therapy room and the industrial therapy unit.

Times change but, by and large, people don’t. The sense of all being in it together for a common purpose, having colleagues you know you can turn to and a team which will support you, and which in your way you can support. These are all the intangibles, the absolutes which keep us going, and which I hope define how Pennine Care works.

I have worked in Rochdale, Bury, Tameside, HQ and Stockport, in various roles – in community mental health teams, inpatients, early intervention team, rehab and high support, psychiatric intensive care, access, home treatment, and of course as medical director. And at every juncture I have met with individuals and teams who have really helped me to understand my role, and to be fair have been incredibly patient as I have driven them mad (professional term) with my own disorganised way of doing things. I remember driving to HQ from Birch Hill Hospital for my appraisal, only for the then medical director to phone me to ask where I was as she was sat in my office waiting for me at Birch Hill Hospital. A career limiting move you would have thought, but something that for those of you who know me will come as no surprise!

Perhaps this would be a good time to thank those who have supported me and put up with me through this. With a special thanks for everything you have done these last few months.

I have been so immensely proud with the collective spirit and response to covid. I can’t help but think that the NHS I joined back in the day is the one I see responding to the pandemic with humanity and a sense of collective purpose – and, really importantly, a sense of recognition from the outside world.

These have truly been interesting times, where we have had to seek certainty where none is given, to live with a degree of uncertainty amidst the confusion, and somehow portray a sense of carrying on regardless. It’s the collective spirit that will stick with me, the sense that we are all in it together – from the covid dance in the corridor as we try to maintain that distance, to the mutual moans about face masks and hand sanitisers.

We’ve done things differently, and we’ve done them in a way that we haven’t been able to in the past. A mixture of permission giving and a lack of what is absolutely right has been a fertile ground for improvement and innovation. The key is surely how we don’t lose that spirit of innovation, of shared accountability, as we move on to what is now generally described as the ‘new normal’.

And I think, as the ‘novelty’ of the pandemic wears thin and the collective spirit runs low, we need to remember what we have achieved. It has been amazing and we can’t allow the collective behaviours to be forgotten, nor the means by which we have achieved these things be extinguished. That’s why we’re really keen to learn and not lose either the great achievements and innovations, or the means by which they came about.

As we enter the next phase, I think it’s right that we have a new leadership structure, with Nihal as our new medical director helping to forge a new clinically led model. The focus on mental health and learning disability has brought our organisation back to its natural home, where we are the expert at what we do, and where our voice is now loudest. Loudest to act on behalf of those whose needs we represent. Nationally, mental health has a voice and a presence which it has lacked over the years, and mental health is also seen as a top priority within Greater Manchester.

My plan for now is to have no plan (again, no surprise there), take some time to unwind a bit and reassess. I have always loved natural history and so I will immerse myself in walking, bird watching, fishing and gardening and await inspiration or opportunity. I suspect that working in public service doesn’t let you off the hook that easy and so, in some guise or other, I will reappear. But in the meantime, if you should happen to see an odd figure walking along with a fishing rod and binoculars, say hi.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be part of this journey. I truly wish Pennine Care and all those who sail in her a bright and happy future.

I need to go and don my PPE for clinic now. Goodbye and thank you so much.

Best wishes

Henry