Game changer

Hope is a powerful thing. It’s being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness. And it inspires us to do the impossible and carry on during difficult times.

It can come in many different shapes and forms, and this week it has come through the news about the covid vaccine breakthrough.

These are the announcements the world has been waiting for. Scientists are going to help us forge a clear pathway out of this global ordeal.

The pandemic may feel as if it has lasted a lifetime, but a number of companies have done the seemingly impossible in developing vaccines in such an incredibly short time. It is a breakthrough for the history books.

Yes, we know there are immense challenges around manufacturing and delivering the vaccine to many millions of people. But they are a total game changer and the ultimate exit strategy from this awful pandemic.

I’ve been on several national calls over the last week which have really highlighted the phenomenal pace involved in preparing for the covid vaccination programme.  The scale in terms of numbers and logistics is just enormous. But there’s real energy and optimism and a clear plan emerging about how we are going to drive this forwards.

Subject to final approval, the programme is being prepared to start vaccinations as soon as early December. The most vulnerable members of the community and front line health and care staff will be first, with others following very quickly over the following few months. A colossal achievement for the most important public health goal in our lifetimes.

I know this news will be bittersweet for those people who have been personally impacted by the virus and who have lost loved ones. Our hearts go out to them and I know how hard it must be to hold hope when you are grieving. We need to recognise we are all in very different places and our ability to have hope depends on what is happening in our lives. The vaccine is an enormous bright light in the darkness, but it doesn’t take away that darkness for very many people.

For me personally, there have been other chinks of light that have cheered me up alongside the vaccine success story.

It was great to kick off the building of our new male psychiatric intensive care unit at Tameside Hospital last week. Our ‘breaking ground’ event was of course much smaller than originally planned because of covid, but this 12-bedded unit will make a real difference to patient care. Many thanks to everyone who is involved in this significant development. There has been a massive amount of hard work over the last few years to get us to this stage and it’s so good we are finally starting building work.

I also want to give a big shout-out to the rehab and high support staff I chatted to during my visit to Beckett and Hurst Place. They are doing such great work in the directorate, despite all the pressures, and it was really inspiring chatting to them.

Our recent board development session on compassionate leadership led by Professor Michael West was also uplifting. I was so struck by the hard evidence he shared on the direct impact of compassionate leadership on delivering high quality care. For example, the size of effects of compassion are greater than the effects of aspirin in heart attacks and statins in reducing the risk of cardiovascular problems. In other words, being compassionate is one of the biggest things we can do to make a difference to people’s wellbeing and recovery.

And, if we have compassion for ourselves then we are better able to show compassion to others. It means being kind and showing ourselves empathy; accepting that we are not perfect; and understanding that there is potential for learning and growth in every mistake we make.

The work we have done as part of the Civility Saves Lives improvement collaborative has allowed us to reflect on how we see ourselves, as well as how others see us; which can be very different to what we imagine.  Self-compassion brings a greater depth of personal awareness and is a key element to us becoming a more outwardly compassionate organisation. 

We’ve also commissioned an external ‘self-compassion in the workplace programme’ for managers in our new leadership restructure, recognising leaders set the culture for the rest of the organisation.  I’ll hopefully cover more about compassionate leadership in my next blog, as it’s timely with our new leadership structure coming into place.

The driving forces of exceptional leadership are desire, self-awareness and most importantly, compassion. It matters more than ever, especially in a post-pandemic world. It will help us build a better future together.

Best wishes

Claire

You can follow me on Twitter @ClaireMolloy2

Clinging onto the small pleasures

I guess like most of you, I heard the news about the second lockdown with an awful sinking feeling. And now that we are a couple of days into it, the feelings of sadness, worry and dread are all still there. 

Even though it was somewhat inevitable and right to do, I am sure a lot of us have heavy hearts at the moment thinking about the next few months.

It reminded me of those slogan T-shirts which say ‘Eat, Sleep, Repeat’.

It’s less about the curtailing of personal freedoms, because we can take four weeks; we can even take twelve weeks as we have shown before. It’s the ever increasing impact on lives and livelihoods, in terms of people’s health, loss of life and the economic destruction. Every day we hear about more job losses and the effect on people’s wellbeing, alongside increasing pressure on already frazzled and tired NHS staff.

And, I know I’ve said it before, but we don’t even have the warm sun to lift our spirits as we did the first time round. At least then, we could finish work and still get outside in daylight for a walk, jog or socially-distanced catch-up in the park. 

I know many suffer from a bit of seasonal affective disorder at the best of times and there’s no sugar coating this time round as we’re no longer wide eyed at the newness of the situation. There seems to be a lot less enthusiasm for Joe Wicks squats, zoom quizzes, Netflix binges and baking bread.

However, it is a double edged sword and, although a lot of our emotions are because we know what to expect, knowing what to expect also puts us in a better position to deal with it. It is not new, or uncharted. We better understand what we are facing now - and the first wave proved that we can cope.

As I said in my email on Wednesday, I wish I had a “magic wand” to make this all go away or at least make it easier for us all to deal with, as I know how exhausted and fed up you are. But I think getting through the next few months is as much about being open and honest about how we are feeling and not approaching it with a false sense of gung-ho when this isn’t how we are feeling.

Our world as we know it is delayed, not derailed.

And as the Persian adage ‘et haec abibunt’ says “This too will pass”.

I was listening to the radio a few days ago and heard a psychologist talking about the importance of hope and trying to retain a sense of optimism and positivity in the face of adversity. This is difficult at the moment when we can’t plan things to look forward to; holidays, time with family and friends or even shopping trips. So we have to find different ways of finding joy in the things around us.

I groaned when the psychologist was followed on the radio by the song “Reasons to be Cheerful” by Ian Dury and the Blockheads, not just because it seemed a cheesy link, but also I’ve never been a fan. However, I found myself listening to the lyrics and starting to smile.

Although the song starts off with the refrain, ‘Why don’t you get back into bed’ (which I am sure is a very normal feeling at the moment!). It is then followed by verses all about the small and sometimes silly things that we can take pleasure from.

He sings about, “The juice of a carrot, the smile of the parrot, a little drop of claret, anything that rocks” and I really smiled at the line, “Something nice to study, phoning up a buddy, being in the nuddy”.

In the absence of the things that normally help get us through the mundane and the stressful, how do we find some smaller things in our everyday life to be happy about?

There’s a few things that have happened over the last week which have given me ‘reasons to be cheerful’.

We had a great board session with our care hubs and I found it really uplifting to hear the progress they have made. They have been working so positively with partners during the pandemic and are really moving service developments forwards.

I loved looking at all your tweets which shared Halloween decorations, costumes and activities in service areas.

And reading all the fabulous stories for Black History Month, and also occupational therapy week which is running this week, have perked up the days.

In terms of the small pleasures at home, these include reading in the bath, watching something good on telly in my pyjamas, feeling the fresh air on my face stomping up a hill with my ‘outdoors smile’ on, clean sheets and my lovely fluffy pillows. And every Thursday my heart almost bursts when my two year old granddaughter goes to her dressing up box in my house to put on her pirate outfit, and then goes in search of a chocolate coin in the bag of treasure (which we hide every week).

I shouldn’t get political, but there might also be a much bigger reason for cheer when Donald Trump finally leaves the White House! (apologies to anyone who likes his style, but I have been baffled and terrified in equal measures during his term of office and will be find it hard not to cheer if he goes).

So let’s cling onto the small pleasures. Let’s keep on finding the small things to appreciate, to celebrate, to be optimistic about. Let’s savour those little moments of joy. As small as they may be, they will hopefully make life better.

Best wishes,

Claire

You can follow me on Twitter @ClaireMolloy2