Different boats in the storm

At the beginning of the pandemic it was commonly said that the virus did not discriminate - everyone could be affected, and we were all ‘in it together’. 

It then became increasingly evident that the virus was having a different impact on some groups in society. A new phrase emerged suggesting that whilst we were all experiencing the same ‘storm’ we were in different ‘boats’.  And, as the pandemic unfolded, we saw the disadvantaged, the elderly, people from ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities all being disproportionately affected by the effects of covid.

People with learning disabilities have been over three times more likely to die from covid than those in the general population. We have lost service users to covid, which I know has been very distressing for our learning disability teams and of course their loved ones.

The statistics are shocking and sombre, but maybe not surprising to those already aware of the health inequalities they faced before the pandemic, including premature avoidable death.  People with a learning disability were often marginalised and had a harder time in society before, and the pandemic has sadly amplified the everyday discrimination and health inequalities they experience. Many have also not understood why certain changes are happening, and have had even less choice and control over their lives than usual.  They have suffered isolation, loneliness and the loss of their independence.

So, I very much hope that the learning disability awareness week running at the moment has helped promote the fact that more needs to be done to support them. I also hope that the week celebrates the uplifting stories, outstanding services, and inspiring people driving through change as they greatly deserve our thanks, admiration and applause.

This year’s theme for the awareness week has been arts and creativity. As for many people with a learning disability and their families, this has been a way to stay connected and positive.

We’ve been promoting stories such as Mark Needham who has been painting throughout the pandemic. Mark is supported by our Rochdale community learning disability team and paints things he loves from his mum’s garden to Michael Crawford in Phantom of the Opera because “it makes him happy”.

Arts and creativity enrich all of our lives. It develops our creative thinking skills, gives a fresh perspective and allows innovation to flourish. It helps reduce stress, build our confidence and keeps us ‘present’, distracting us from worries and focusing our attention. It enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

We are all born creative, but some of us forget how to be creative somewhere along the way. As Picasso said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

All the restrictions seem to have boosted a tsunami of creativity though, whether it’s been through gardening, sewing, painting, photography, cooking or singing. Virtual choirs, knitting clubs and online arts and dance classes have sprung up everywhere. A host of creative TV programmes promoting and celebrating the immense talent out there have also been storming ahead in the ratings. They shine a light on what can be done by ordinary people with a special set of skills.

I’ve so loved watching the Great British Sewing Bee. Charming judges, wonderful contestants and the spirit-lifting sight of creativity springing from human hands makes this contest soothing for the soul. I’m rubbish at sewing, having only ever made an Eeyore soft toy and unwearable dress when I was at school, but I’ve loved watching twelve amateur sewers wowing us with fabric creations. Damien from Bolton, who has been described as ‘TV gold’ and ‘an absolute legend’ was a joy to watch. The engineer started teaching himself to sew three years ago when a pair of work trousers needed altering and won fans throughout the competition with his individuality, positivity, and, let’s face it, his complete refusal to stick to the brief. 

I also love The Great Pottery Throw Down and Portait Artist of the Year and have been inspired to book onto an art course in September. It will cover everything, from the technical side of translating what you see onto paper as well as using different mediums such as acrylics, oils, charcoal etc. In preparation I’ve started sketching, just to get a sense of how far I have to go! I really don’t have any talent for drawing or painting (not being modest, trust me I don’t), but it does matter. I’m going to unleash my inner child. After all, there are no rules to creativity. 

And creativity is not exclusively an artistic pursuit that we do in our spare time, but rather the process of generating new ideas and solving complex problems. It’s critical for an organisation in order to develop and thrive. We have to think creatively to deliver the best services we can, something we’ve seen in abundance over this last year.

The consultation for the corporate services redesign is currently underway for example and this involves thinking creatively about how we can adapt and change our corporate services to make the required efficiency savings following the transfer of community health services, while looking at how we can best support our new clinical and operational teams and the wider system.

Some teams are coming up with alternative proposals that they think could work well for their teams and our organisation, so it’s great to see imagination and creativity flowing through this process. I want to stress how much we encourage this. Consultations are about hearing views about a set of proposals and seeking views and opinions in a genuinely open way. Only after the consultation has finished will a final set of proposals be created before moving into any management of change.

But I know that this is a stressful, worrying and difficult time for corporate colleagues. It’s more complex with everyone working remotely, and of course people are also doing their ‘day job’ on top of this. This is putting additional strain on teams and so I hope we can support our corporate colleagues as much as we can, showing kindness and understanding.

We’re asking everyone in Trust HQ to carry on working as they have been over the last year in terms of location, especially with the lifting of final restrictions being put back. We hope by the end of the summer to have a draft business case about how we might use Trust HQ going forward, as we need to hold onto the benefits of agile working, so we will be engaging with you for ideas about how this should look.

When I touch on different themes, stories and pieces of work in this blog it feels, every single time, that our values are a golden thread running through all that you do. Kindness, fairness, ingenuity and determination. Thank you, once again, for living and breathing these. They will help play our part in building a better world.

Best wishes

Claire

You can follow me on Twitter @ClaireMolloy2

A sense of belonging…

Claire Molloy (top) and
Pauline Flint (bottom)

It’s an honour to have Pauline Flint, a former patient who now volunteers on Taylor Ward at Tameside Hospital, share her story for our guest blog. Volunteers’ Week starts on 1 June and we are so grateful to all our volunteers. They give their time to help others with a generosity of spirit, kindness and compassion that fills our hearts.

Best wishes

Claire

Pauline Flint

I was invited to write a ‘blog’ about my journey to becoming a volunteer with Pennine Care, so here goes. 

Anyone who knows me in person would probably be smiling at me using words like ‘blog,’ as I have no technological skills and even less understanding of its terminology.

I have been a volunteer since March 2019. And on the whole I have found it a very rewarding experience. I also feel very humbled to have become a volunteer on Taylor ward, because my experience of Taylor ward prior to this had been many admissions as an inpatient.

Shall I say that I am now rather mature in years. My childhood was rather grim to say the least. My family had little money; my mother was a nurse, my father had spent a large part of his life suffering from different illnesses, and I have a brother a little older than myself. We lived in a rather rundown house, which was owned by my nan who also lived with us.

The situation was extremely cramped, relationships strained, and I was abused because of it.

Despite all the poverty, relationship problems and abuse, when I left school I went to college, where I met my closest friends, and I am still in touch with them today.

As we got to the end of our college life, we started going out ‘clubbing’. One of my friends set me up on a blind date with a lad called Graham when I was 18. We married when I was 20 and he has now been putting up with me for over 40 years - we still get on so well.

My first job was as a nursing assistant at Offerton House, which was an old hospital looking after adults with learning difficulties. At that time the term was mentally subnormal (horrible).

I applied to do my pupil nurse training in order to train as an enrolled nurse in mental health, a level of trained nurse that no longer exists. And if my view counted, I would say that the enrolled nurses – whose job was to ensure the ward was running smoothly and the patients were receiving the care they required, while the registered nurses managed the office, did the ward rounds, and did staff rotas etc - is one that would be better brought back into use.

I worked as an enrolled nurse on what was then the new acute psychiatric unit at Stepping Hill hospital (whoops giving away my age now) for two years.

I was about to move onto pastures new, when I found I was expecting my first baby. I gave birth to my first daughter Rachael, in 1984. I went back to work part-time, but it wasn’t to work out for me, and I ended up working at what was then Hyde hospital with people with dementia. I thought I wouldn’t really like it, but needs must. As it was I loved it, on the whole the staff were lovely, the patients could be difficult and challenging at times, but the work was extremely rewarding.

However, two years later I found I was expecting again, and working hours at the time were just totally unsuitable, so I left my nursing job.

I had a child minder for Rachael, and it turned out we were expecting our babies at the same time. We became good friends. We had many long talks together about child care, and the lack of nursery provision at the time. 

And, after many discussions and some initial training, we opened a playgroup in 1988.

We were very successful in our work, my business partner was already a well received member of the local community, and at last I felt I had found where I wanted to be. I was a member of the local church, I had a lovely home on the edge of Werneth Low country park, a loving supportive husband, and two beautiful bright children, both doing well at school and with their own hobbies and friends. More than I could ever have imagined.

However in 1995, black dark memories came back to haunt me, to this day I have no idea why. 

For the very first time I opened up the dark part of my life to my close friend and business partner, who encouraged me to speak with my husband. I thought talking about these dark secrets would make them go away, but although I followed advice and sought help from other agencies, I went into a deep depression. Visits to the GP and various types of antidepressants did not help and I became very ill. 

I was referred to the psychiatrist and my nightmare got worse, with ECT treatment and a long time as a patient in the day hospital. However I made a recovery and retrained as a registered mental health nurse. I was luckily still under the care of an excellent care co-ordinator. 

As I was doing so well, my GP, who had been concerned at the high dose of medication I was on, decided that a reduced dose would probably maintain me. But within two weeks I started to become ill, recognising the symptoms I had previously had - emotional instability, bad tempers for no reason, excessive tiredness, horrible. I contacted my GP and community psychiatric nurse, and was advised to increase the meds again, but for whatever reason they just didn’t help.

And so I ended up leaving my job, and once again found myself on what seemed like a long unending journey to find an answer to my problems.

This period of illness/recovery, lasted nearly 17 years, I would also undergo further courses of ECT as that would help lift my mood, and different types of anti-depressants, which unfortunately didn’t render my mood stable, and so I would deteriorate yet again. 

I was admitted to hospital many times. Usually I would refuse to stay, but as I was considered a danger to myself, I would be placed on a section of the mental health act. My last admission to hospital was in 2012 when I had become very low in mood and felt completely dark inside. 

It was like fighting a battle that I was never going to win.

I had planned to end the battle by ending my life. People say you have so much to live for, but I just felt like a burden - that the pain inside was endless, and there was no hope of a life worth living. I was admitted on section 3 of the mental health act which was renewed at least twice and my hospital stay was approximately 2 1/2 years.

It was eventually decided to change my medication to a drug I had been on during my first recovery phase, so I didn’t expect it to work. But like a miracle, it started to have the desired effect, and I was finally well enough to be discharged.

Feeling better, being in recovery, and being finally discharged and home, is supposed to be a good place to be and I had wanted it for so long. But due to my long illness I had lost a lot of confidence, my husband and my daughters were always supportive. But I had few friends, those who had been close had moved on with their lives and I felt I know longer fitted in. On top of this I suffer from problems with my memory, that I attribute to the many courses of ECT I have had.

There I was at home, with my family feeling ok, but not knowing what to do with myself.

I was offered a support worker; I said ‘no’ at first, as I wanted to be away from all things ‘hospital’. But my family encouraged me to try and so Georgie came along. She was great, the first couple of times we met we talked, she got to know what I liked doing, how I had always wanted to turn the small upstairs room into a craft room. The third time we met she asked to look at the room, and started suggesting ways it could be done, then helped me to sort it out and get it done. She began to introduce me to other groups, with other people who had similar interests - baking, crafts etc - and I gained more and more confidence in myself.

As it grew I went back to church, and became involved in projects there. I set up a group we called Time to Talk; to help with this, I went on courses at MIND. I had also still had some involvement with the mental health unit, having been asked to be an inpatient representative on the acute care forum. I knew some of the staff who attended, especially Bernie Connolly, ward manager on Taylor ward at Tameside, who I have known for shall I say quite a few years.

I overheard Bernie at one of these meetings asking if they had had any luck getting a volunteer in to work with the recovery and inclusion team. I also heard the answer, which was ‘no’. I had always been under the impression that if you had been a patient on the ward, maybe because there might be patients you know personally, or perhaps nurses maybe finding working alongside you rather than looking after you a bit difficult, that you could not volunteer on that ward.

But at that point I had been well for years with no admissions, so I thought I would just muscle in and said, “I’d love to do that, if I was allowed”.

From that point, everything moved quite quickly. There were application forms, procedures, and training days. I have now been working with Sam on Taylor ward, who is my immediate manager, for about two years on and off, what with Covid 19 and its rules. He has always been very supportive. I can ask him if I need any help with anything, but I also feels he trusts me well enough now to tell him if I am having problems or not managing something or a situation very well. 

When I first started on the ward, I had training in order to be able to hold keys needed to gain access to certain areas on the ward, I also have to wear an alarm. The keys were very difficult for me to take at first. As these had obviously been used in the past to keep me out of areas, and to keep me safely ON the ward. It felt really odd to have a set of my own, I asked Roger (security) if he really was happy about me having them! 

Mostly, I love working on the ward, indeed I was a finalist for the Pennine care community award - placed in the last three. 

Alas I didn’t win, but I felt so proud to have just been nominated. I love what I am doing and it’s so rewarding when a patient has said they have no skills and no concentration to do anything, but then completes maybe a colouring or some sewing with you, and shows so much gratitude for your help. 

I know it has encouraged them sometimes when they have said, “But you have no idea how it feels to be me and be here” and my reply is one of “No, you’re right, I don’t know what it’s like to be you, but as for being here, I do know how it feels”.

This often opens what has seemed like a locked door, and they realise that I have had the experience of mental illness and its problems, and other people’s lack of understanding of how it is to suffer the pain of an illness that is mostly unseen by others. The comments such as “Pull yourself together”, or “Look at all the nice things you have, stop being selfish”.

This awareness can sometimes help them open up, feel a little more relaxed and maybe even try a craft, or just sit and have a chat, rather than just hide in their room.

Despite my initial worries regarding being accepted by staff - some of whom had known me previously as a patient - I really needn’t have had any. They have all accepted me, given me lots of support, and when they have time they have joined in.

I do find it difficult witnessing some scenes of abuse towards staff, mostly verbal, that sometimes cannot be helped because of the patient’s illness. I also need my own support sometimes that comes mostly from family, but I also have attended our Trust’s health and wellbeing college. I find the courses very helpful, even if I might have done the work before I find it a good way to keep myself on track, and remind me that my own mental and physical health is as important as everyone else’s.

I have also been part of the PALS lived experience group, and was able to attend a course on mental health first aid because of this. Had I not had that opportunity, I could not have done the course as I would not have been in a position to pay for it. This course has proved extremely helpful to me, being able to offer advice and where appropriate give help, during this pandemic.

During the last period of lockdown, although I was allowed to volunteer on the ward if I had wanted too, I had felt particularly under strain. I decided as well that as I had certain child care obligations, it would be safer to stay at home. Since I returned I have reduced my time to one half day. Hopefully once the Covid crisis is over, and I get myself organised again I will go back to two half days.

However I wasn’t totally idle during the last lockdown, as I volunteered to help at the Pennine Care trust headquarters, as part of the escort team, taking people for their vaccinations and escorting them out. It helped me keep a bit fitter since I no longer go to the gym. 

Finally, if anyone ever needs encouragement to make the step to becoming a volunteer, I would say give it a try. You don’t have to take the same role as myself. The volunteer staff could probably guide you into the right work for you. Give it a go, it gives me a sense of responsibility, with the advantage of taking a break when I need to.

And most importantly, it has given me back a sense of belonging and being needed that I thought I would never have again. 

I would like to say a massive thank you, to all those who were involved in my care during my illness. And an even bigger one for accepting me into my present role. 

Nature is a thousand miracles

I recently went climbing for the first time in 18 months and felt absolutely terrified.

My husband and I went up to the Lake District for a short break and met up with some friends during the day to do some climbing and cycling. Even the most friendly rock routes seemed so steep and scary! I felt like an unconfident novice, totally overwhelmed with little recollection of how to move on rock. 

The pandemic has infiltrated every part of our lives, so it’s probably no surprise that I was a bag of nerves. But we tried to stay relaxed and took it very easy and gradually it started coming back to me and I was up and away.

It began to feel familiar again, and with the fresh air filling my lungs and the sun beating down on my face (we were so lucky to have great weather), I realised how much I had missed it. When I climb, the magic of nature takes over and the heaviness of life lifts.

I returned home energised, feeling so much better with the world in general, and grateful.

Covid has made so many more of us aware of how much we need nature, and that’s why it just had to be this year’s theme for Mental Health Awareness Week. We need nature to stay mentally well at the best of times, and still more in the worst of times.

I have many happy outdoor places, finding so much joy just being out in the open air, and I’ve loved seeing your posts about how nature helps your wellbeing as part of the mental health awareness week promotion.

Nature soothes us, rejuvenates us, inspires us. It nourishes the soul.

You’ll know better than me all the research showing its power in helping to reduce anxiety and stress, improve mood, raise self-esteem, and improve well-being. 

Nature is a thousand miracles. It's a wonderful feeling to push even a tiny piece of the planet down beneath your feet. Just imagine if the stars appeared in the sky only one night every decade, oh how we would marvel in awe. 

Touching mountain rocks that are millions of years old brings such perspective; they are earth’s everlasting monuments. It can make any problems I may have suddenly seem smaller.

I felt at times during lockdown that I would never get back to climbing, as it’s easy to think something might never happen when it’s delayed, paused and then postponed again. It becomes a bit unimaginable.

It has felt a bit like that with Paris, our electronic patient record programme! We’ve been talking about it for so long, with the go live date for the third cohort being pushed back several times. 

But it’s absolutely happening in just over a week on 24 May. An incredible amount of preparatory work has been taking place with 142 Paris champions now in place, and I want to thank everyone who is working tirelessly in preparation on this significant work.

So, in the same way I dusted off my helmet and harness and got ready for my climb, it’s essential you are all as ready as you can be and ensure you have the training and get familiar with the system.

The big difference is that Paris isn’t a mountain you need to metaphorically climb; it will hopefully transform your working lives for the better, bringing a host of benefits to clinical teams and patients. That includes being able to access up-to-date, accurate and complete information about patients all in one place. It should give you more time to focus on patient care, which is what all our work is ultimately about.

Its success will depend on all our clinicians and professions using it and helping us make it better. And no more so, than our largest staff group - nurses – you have an essential role in ensuring its successful implementation. I know you’ll rise to the challenge, just as you always do. And it was brilliant to have the opportunity to recognise, thank and applaud nurses this Wednesday for International Nurses Day. 

Your dedication, skill and compassion throughout the pandemic has been truly phenomenal, from caring selflessly for patients to delivering a successful vaccine programme to colleagues. 

You have climbed your own challenging mountain and reached the very top. We salute you.

Best wishes,

Claire

You can follow me on Twitter @ClaireMolloy2

Guest blog from Nicky Tamanis, finance director

Nicky Tamanis

Meeting people and building relationships is essential when you start a new job - but, when you’re working remotely, it’s a completely different experience. 

You won’t bump into people in the corridor, have the half-day orientation to see different teams, or enjoy an impromptu chat over coffee.

I joined Pennine Care as director of finance last September and it’s been a surreal experience to say the least. I was absolutely thrilled to be appointed, but starting a new job in the middle of a global pandemic is not something I had on my bucket list.  Almost as soon as I started, national restrictions were reinstated to manage the second wave, and there I was home-alone staring into a screen all day.

When you’re in the office, conversations happen organically. You’ll naturally talk with people around you, or you’ll ask if they can give you their opinion on work. I’ve always loved that part of the job.

So it’s been a trickier start than pre-pandemic, but it would have been a much lonelier experience if everyone here hadn’t been so thoughtful, helpful and made so much effort to connect. I’m really grateful for that, thank you.

Getting to grips with the complexity of the services which Pennine Care provides across five boroughs has been an interesting challenge. A great example of this is the challenge we face around beds, which was highlighted when I met the patient flow team in Bury.

It’s been a fascinating learning curve, but it’s also felt like a shared experience as we’ve all been impacted by the pandemic and forced to work differently. So in some ways, it’s been a bit of a weird bonding experience!

I’ve learned to stay close remotely, and ring-fenced time to get to know my colleagues and teams on an individual and personal level.  It’s an essential part of building trust and team spirit, especially with the corporate services redesign underway which has brought some uncertainty and understandable anxiety. Although when Lola my German Shepherd is barking in the background it might feel like a less than calm chat!

It’s just frustrating that I’ve not been able to say hello to more of you, but hopefully that time will soon come.

When I have been able to squeeze in a safe visit, it’s been such an enjoyable escape from the house. David Lees, our head of capital projects in estates, has taken me out on site visits; so I’ve been to Tameside where our new psychiatric intensive care unit is being built, the new single gender accommodation in Bury and Rochdale and also Forest House in Oldham where our 24/7 patient helpline service is housed. You’ll know better than me that some of our buildings and areas are in desperate need of a facelift and how much the environment impacts on working lives and the patient experience. So it’s been brilliant to see the improvements first-hand.

This pandemic has also given us new opportunities, with the teams I’m responsible for playing a crucial and pivotal role. I heard someone say the other day that, “there is no back-office” in the NHS. And I couldn’t agree more, as our IT, estates and facilities teams have been hard at work supporting clinical teams on the front-line. The Windows 10 project leading up to Christmas was time critical, so our engineers were going out to wards and other patient areas throughout that time.

We’re now preparing for the PARIS electronic patient record to go live for inpatient and outpatient teams, followed by older adults community services and secondary care psychological services. The system will transform the way clinical teams work and should bring tremendous benefits in terms of safety, efficiency and co-ordinated care.

The old argument about whether it’s right to prioritise modern technology in the NHS is over. The pandemic has proven beyond doubt that better tech is vital for the future success of our NHS services. And we always need to ensure a ‘user-centric’ approach to technology, because at the end of the day this is about improving patient outcomes and your working lives. These are never just IT projects.

So, thank you again for such a warm welcome and your support over these first eight months. I’ve felt the virtual hugs and helping hands and really look forward to meeting even more of you along the ‘road to freedom’. 

It's not fair

It’s so joyful seeing my three year old granddaughter, Lyra, develop her language. 

However, her newly learned phrase of “It’s not fair!”, delivered with an impressive dollop of pouting, whining and sulking is funny but thought provoking. 

Lyra, of course, uses it when I won’t let her have ice-cream before her tea or stay playing outside when it’s pouring with rain. But it’s interesting that even at the age of three we start to have a sense of what’s fair and what’s not; and there has certainly been a lot over the last few weeks that has made me think about fairness in life. 

Like many women I have been shocked by the death of Sarah Everard. Her murder has appalled people and ignited a passionate debate around the issue of male violence. While there is widespread horror and sadness, I think many responding might be grieving something else we, as women, feel we don’t have – the sense of justice and equality.

The vast majority of us didn’t know Sarah Everard, but this case has chimed with so many. It’s led women across the land to speak out about their experiences of harassment, abuse and violence against women. Some have chosen to share their own experiences to highlight how frequently it occurs and how rarely they are taken seriously.

Of course, it’s rare to be abducted, which is partly why this one case - in a year when 117 women were murdered - has shaken us all so much. But it is clearly not rare for women to be harmed by strangers.

According to the Office for National Statistics, the majority of young woman in the UK have experienced sexual harassment of some form; and one in forty young women have experienced rape. I’ve been so struck by the stories of how sexism and a spectrum of behaviour, ranging from dismissive to predatory, has tried to diminish or harm women.

I’ve been lucky not to have had the same dreadful experiences that so many young women have had, but like most women I still feel anxious about being harassed or attacked when I’m out on my own. I carry a rape alarm and also hold my keys tight between my fingers when I’m walking anywhere in the dark. 

Of course, many men experience the same fear late at night and have awful experiences of assault, but there are almost four times as many female victims of sexual assault as men, with more than 4 in 10 being victims of their own partner. It’s also disturbing to hear about the dramatically falling rate of rape prosecutions, down by a third over the last two years. More than 55,000 rapes were recorded in 2019/20, but only 1.4% resulted in a charge or summons. Whatever the reasons, surely this is a betrayal to victims of violence. 

The killing of Sarah Everard has reignited a long standing discussion about women’s safety. Whilst, getting women to modify our behaviour might seem a quicker option than trying to get men to stop being violent towards us, this argument’s been made for too long. Women are attacked regardless of the effort they’ve made to avoid harm. 

So, it is not surprising that there was a strength of feeling that led many people to feel the need to demonstrate through a vigil on Clapham Common last Saturday.  It’s not for me to comment on the rights and wrongs of this during a pandemic, but I was shocked by the way the Met police officers handled this event.  

Just a few weeks before I had watched the news and seen the police apply a hands-off approach to thousands of Rangers fans who came out onto the streets. They had gathered together in Glasgow to celebrate their club’s Scottish Premiership win, and were escorted through the city by the police rather than wrestled to the ground. And there have been other football club celebrations during lockdown where the police have taken the same ‘hands off’ approach.

I appreciate these are never easy judgments and few would envy the delicate line that police have had to tread during lockdown. But I simply don’t understand why it is fair for thousands of mostly male football fans to be left alone on the streets, to sing and hug each other in celebration of a game, when far less women were stopped from a peaceful vigil. There does need to be more of a consistent and proportionate response for us to believe fairness is in play.

Still on the subject of fairness, I wanted to talk about the NHS staff survey results, which have just been published. Nationally, there has been a significant increase in the number of BAME staff experiencing discrimination and feeling unfairly treated with regards to career progression, which is massively disappointing and unacceptable. Far more BAME staff also worked on covid wards, 47% BAME compared to 31% white staff. This is absolutely disgraceful. We all need to shout that this is completely unfair and has to change.

It was really good to see that our results for our BAME staff are bucking this national trend, with a reduction in colleagues feeling discriminated against as well as bullied and harassed. It shows that our commitment and the hard work of our race equality staff network is beginning to work.

You’ve hopefully seen that we’ve just launched our anti-racist statement, just before International Day for the Elimination of Race this Sunday. This is about being unapologetically loud and proud in our stance as an anti-racist organisation. We know that we still have a long way to go, but it is reassuring to see some positive improvements towards fairness.

In terms of our disabled staff, the survey showed an increase in us making adequate adjustments for work, but more felt discriminated against because of their disability. Again, we obviously have more work to do as this isn’t fair.  We must do better and having just achieved ‘level 2 disability confident employer’ status, I know our staff network will help us work towards achieving level 3 which is much more ambitious.

Fairness is one of our values. But it needs to be more than lip service and we have to take every opportunity to address the causes of inequality and remove the barriers that stop us all being treated fairly.

Life isn’t fair sometimes, but we absolutely must try to be.  

Pandemics old and new

“A one-way road to freedom”. 

This is how Boris described his roadmap for the lifting of lockdown measures as he said spring was on its way ‘both literally and figuratively’. 

It's light at end of the tunnel, even if it feels like a long tunnel! There is a lot of understandable caution in the wind and it’s still probably going to be at least another six months before it feels that everything is back to normal.

It’s so hard to believe it’s been a year. No-one could have ever predicted this and I’m going to say again that I appreciate just how tough it’s been for you all, whatever your experience.

It’s been stressful and difficult for frontline staff who have faced daily anxiety about catching and spreading covid, whilst wearing uncomfortable face masks and PPE. It’s been challenging and isolating for staff working remotely, hunched over make-shift desks with sore backs, eye strain and zoom fatigue. Some of you have been trying to work while looking after your kids at home, have been terribly ill from the virus, had the immense pressure of having to shield or faced tragic loss and grief.

It’s been such a tough year and it’s a miracle that you have managed to keep going and make it through even if we are emerging somewhat knackered and emotionally drained.    

It feels as if our whole lives have been on hold in this weird groundhog day world and that we’ve had a year of ‘standing still’ to some extent. But, your phenomenal work actually tells a very different story. The numbers are amazing and show that far from being stuck, you’ve managed to make great strides forwards with your undisputed determination and ingenuity taking on every obstacle.

Since the pandemic started you’ve cared and supported around 100,000 people; selflessly and compassionately providing the highest quality care to help others. You have saved and changed lives.

You’ve held 9000 remote consultations using Attend Anywhere with patients, equivalent to around 7000 hours. You’ve set up a 24-hour patient and carer helpline and been part of rolling out the largest vaccination programme in our history, administering thousands of vaccines to staff in just weeks. Our clinical support services have kept the wheels on the bus in so many ways, helping people who use our services, helping people to work remotely and supporting our programmes of change. And much, much more. I could not be more impressed or proud.

When we went into lockdown a year ago I talked about living in Eyam, the infamous ‘plague village’, in my blog. As a nightmare tale from history, Eyam's ordeal takes some surpassing and is a poignant story of sacrifice. When the great plague arrived in 1665, rather than flee this wild corner of Derbyshire - and risk spreading the infection - villagers locked themselves away to suffer in isolation. And suffer they did. For 14 months infection ravaged the village and 75% of the population lost their lives.

Pandemics are not new to the human species — they're just new to those of us alive now and who’d have thought a year ago the whole country would have to do what those brave villagers in Eyam did hundreds of years ago.

At the beginning of the pandemic last March, the BBC's Fergal Keane visited our village as we braced ourselves for the difficult times ahead. He interviewed 96 year old Sheila Vypan, who not only lives up the road from me, but whose grandson actually works for Pennine Care in our mental health services. He got in touch after last year’s blog to let me know his grandmother was a neighbour. Small world.

Anyway, BBC reporter Fergal Keane returned to our village this week to do a ‘year on’ follow-up piece and spoke to Sheila again to see how she was coping. He asked what her secret to staying happy was and Sheila replied, “Being in the present, trying not to think too much of what might be or what has been. But just taking it in, all that’s here now, and making the most of it”.

I just love this sentiment. Yes, the roadmap out of the pandemic means we can start thinking of the future and looking forward to things like holidays and we do need to think about what the roadmap means for us as an organisation and how things might change over the summer and autumn as we return to more normal life. But we still need to manage the present, take one day at a time and not worry about what we can’t currently change or control.

We will eventually get to the other end of the tunnel and to a better place, but in the meantime, if we can find ways of just taking each day at a time and valuing what we have now, then we might find it easier to get through.  

And when we come out the other end, we won’t go back to exactly what we were doing before, for example, we will continue to support staff to work in a more agile way, both in work places and at home, so we can create extra space for other things, for example, in our Trust HQ building. What this agile working looks like will be down to what works for people who use our services and what works for individual staff, with no expectation that we will go back to working in exactly the same way we did previously. We need to be creative in finding new ‘blended’ ways of working that builds in the advantages we have had from remote working but with the undoubted benefits of seeing each other in person more often.

When the great plague was happening those many centuries ago, Sir Isaac Newton fled his cramped apartment in Cambridge where he was studying for the safety of his family home in Lincolnshire.

His family had a large garden with many fruit trees, and in those uncertain times, out of step with ordinary life, his mind roamed free of routines and social distractions. And it was in this context that a single apple falling from a tree struck him as more intriguing than any of the apples he had previously seen fall. Gravity was a gift of the plague!

You see, there is an opening for previously unthinkable change, not only for the big societal and organisational stuff, but also in countless small ways – privately, personally.

We have lived for months at close quarters with ourselves. We will have deepened our appreciation of some of the simple things we have missed, and some of the pleasures that have helped us through, even if it is only the taste of a new season apple. And in some measure, one year on, we surely know ourselves so much better.

Best wishes

Claire

You can follow me on Twitter @ClaireMolloy2

It's a Sin

Claire Molloy (top) and
Jeremy Bentham (bottom)

An unknown deadly virus, misinformation, fear and uncertainty about the future. 

No, amazingly I’m not talking about covid, but the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.

It’s LGBT+ History Month and I’ve just watched Channel 4’s most binged series of all time - It’s a Sin. It beautifully chronicles the lives of gay friends living in London during the ’80s, with humour and humanity at its very heart. It’s a rare series that is as full of love for its colourful characters as it is sick with anger at the society that failed them. If you are still to watch it, keep your box of tissues close to hand.

I remember this decade well and the awful government AIDS adverts featuring an apocalyptic volcano erupting under a darkened sky and the words ‘Don’t die of ignorance’ chiselled onto a tombstone. These ads were deliberately meant to strike fear into the hearts of the nation, but they also fuelled prejudice and stigma in an already homophobic society.

I joined the NHS in the early 90s and my very first job was working in a GUM sexual health clinic where one of the teams I worked with supported people being tested for the virus. I remember very caring and committed colleagues who were doing a good job, but you could still feel a sense of judgment.

It’s interesting looking back 30 years later and remembering that the main focus then in the service was on contact tracing - a ‘track and trace’ style programme as we now have with covid. I remember much less attention on the psychological impact of testing positive for HIV, which would have been such an enormous and distressing thing.

It’s a Sin expertly depicts how shame, nurtured by a homophobic society allows the virus to flourish and intensify the crisis. It was even labelled the “gay plague” and this cast a large shadow on that community, meaning that many people suffered in silence especially in their last days of life, as shown in the series. Heart-breaking and hugely sad.

Fake news, false facts and conspiracy theories weren’t invented recently. They ran riot with AIDS in the 80s.

It feels as if things have thankfully moved on, but as with so many things we still have a way to go. I still see some of the same prejudice and bias now, especially for the transgender community as there is still such a lot of ignorance amongst us.

The theme for LGBT+ History Month is mind, body and spirit and it's an opportunity to increase the visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT+) people, their history, their lives and their experiences. It’s so important we celebrate the wonderful diversity of the human race, but critical that we reflect when we have treated people poorly so we can change what we do in the future.  

And still on the subject of excellent TV programmes and highlighting prejudice, I was also hugely impacted by The Truth about Disability Hate Crime. This heart-wrenching BBC documentary tells harrowing testimonies from a group of disabled people who face name-calling, physical violence and intimidation in their daily lives.  

It was distressing and depressing to hear their stories, from a wheelchair-bound former nurse being abused relentlessly after she was accused of being a benefits cheat to a blind woman made homeless after becoming a 'target' for muggings in the local area. We also heard from Andrea who faced unprovoked verbal and physical attacks as a result of her dwarfism. She said it was 'rare' for her to be able to leave her home without some form of abuse and that, “every day when you get dressed you don’t just have to put your clothes on, you have to put your wrestling tights on as you have to prepare for a battle.” I can only imagine how exhausting and stressful this must be.

The programme also featured a young man with autism who was left with suicidal thoughts after being a victim of mindless brutal assaults. I was shocked by the routine aggression and abuse they have to face and we clearly need a widespread change in attitudes.

We launched our learning disability strategy yesterday and this focuses on the way we support and see people with learning disability in our society, and aims to maximise their potential. I’m therefore so pleased that Jeremy Bentham, who heads up our learning disability services, has kindly done a guest blog this week.

While disability is, undeniably, a personal issue, it is also a societal one. We need changes in our society to allow everyone to feel a valued part of it and to be the best they can be. We are all different and we all have things that make us unique, but we all fundamentally want to fit in. To have friends, to be loved, to be valued and to be able to live our lives without feeling fear from others.

This is all of our right and we need to stand back and think about the sanctity of human life; and about the type of society needed to protect everyone.  

There is no greater disability in society than the inability to see a person as more.

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Guest blog – Jeremy Bentham, learning disability directorate manager

It’s the early 90’s and having just secured an ‘ology’ on the banks of the Mersey, I was on the lookout for employment.

As they do, an opportunity popped up through a friend to work with three people with learning disabilities living together in Middleton. The job brief was pretty straight forward, as a support worker I was asked to get to know them and help them enjoy the things they enjoy.

Similar to many of our career pathways this was the start of a road that wasn’t driven by ‘burning ambition’, it was simply my gentle introduction to the lives of three men living on a back road in Middy.

All three of these people had ambitions of their own, which ranged from falling out of a club at 2am, finding friends to getting a job. Throughout our time together and despite some persistent challenges, these reasonable ambitions didn’t waiver.

Following a trial and failure, failure, failure approach, we eventually shared the joy of rising for work at silly o’clock and leaving the Carlton club at 2am using the escalator, also known locally as ‘escalator to heaven’. It was really the small things that made a difference in the end to their lives, the bouncer who knew queuing was anxiety provoking and let us straight in, the patience of the bar staff, the friend who knew how to listen and when to leave and the employer who didn’t mind a late start (as long as the hours went in).

In comparison to the absolutely awful life experiences these men had endured characterised by decades of institutionalisation, isolation and abuse, the small inroads we made together might seem insignificant. I like to think that these and others experiences made a difference within that space and moment in time, however I can’t honestly guarantee that they did in the long run. I can only really attest to the impact meeting these people had on me.

Their resilience and refusal to compromise on personal ambitions inspired me to see what else I could do, as a result I’m all trained up and pretty much in the same job 30 years on. Sadly the Carlton has now closed.

This month we launch our Pennine Care learning disability plan. We have developed our plan from listening to people with learning disabilities, colleagues, self-advocates and families.

To some our ambitions may seem modest, however they reflect the modest ambition of most people with learning disabilities to have an life experience free from stubborn inequalities. Our plan is really about the whole of Pennine Care, not just the bits we might usually think of when discussing how we support and care for people with a learning disability.

Our plan needs momentum, as a starter for 10 it would be great if everyone, both corporate and clinical, took 5 mins to cast an eye over the plan and consider ‘the small things that might make a difference in the end’.

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Best wishes

Claire

You can follow me on Twitter @ClaireMolloy2