Back to normality - Major milestone

Well it seems a long time since last week when I spent a day in this tent overlooking a lake on the Yorkshire moors - view on the right. (I think tent is an exaggeration, as it offered little protection.)

Major milestone
I am delighted to say that at a meeting this week with the architects, we have agreed the contractor, who is going to undertake the work on the In Patient Unit. The quotations for all the work have come in line with expectations, this means we will be able to do all the work we have planned. However we will be working to a tight time frame and there will be little or no movement to make any further changes to the plan.

It is hoped that we will begin the work around the 21 - 28 April and it will take 16 weeks. We are being visited by the Health Care Commission on 7 April to assess whether our new Day Hospice department is fit to receive patients and a great deal of work is happening to ensure that we pass. (We will have a contingency plan if we don't pass on that day.)

We have also received the grant from the Department of Health and will be submitting reports to them about what the work we are doing.

I must say the fact that we have got to this point so efficiently, is much to the credit of all the people who have been working so hard in agreeing specifications and deciding on fixtures and fittings. I know many people across the In Patient Unit and Day Hospice have spent hours pouring over plans and details .

One of the key people in all of this has been Colin Bacon who has been been working tirelessly with the architects and all the firms that have been visiting as well as coordinating all the office moves that have been happening. Always ensuring that people have phone and computer access.

I hope will join me in giving him our heartfelt thanks.

Embracing change

As we are experiencing changes in our surroundings we are also coping with the normal changes that happen in organisations when people leave and join the organisation. We will be saying goodbye to some staff, seeing changing roles for others and welcoming new additions to the team.

Change can feel unsettling, but our work with patients and families makes us realise that change is part of life, although we cannot always have control of change we do have control on how we react and respond to it. But I do believe that our work with the dying and bereaved perhaps makes us more sensitive to change, perhaps because we deal with other people's uncertainties we would like less uncertainty in our own lives. Therefore if we all get involved with, and see how we can influence change it should decrease the uncertainty we may fear.

For the Hospice to continue to develop and thrive in the future we must all embrace change positively, over the next months we are going to be developing a plan that will carry us through the next 5 years.

Some of the ideas I have been thinking about are:

• Making sure that all patients who might need our support really understand what we do and can easily access our services
  
• Raise the profile of our work locally and nationally
• Offer training placements to those who want to see excellent hospice care in action

I know that the whole team is passionate about the work we do and everyone will have a part in contributing to that plan and I look forward to hearing people's ideas.

Ideas are going to be collected:

• On noticeboards
• Via email
• Comments on my Blog
• Written suggestions to me or via your manager
  

Communication

With over 100 staff and over 450 volunteers and thousands of supporters in the community, keeping them all up to date with events at the Hospice is a constant challenge. As a team we debate how many trees should be sacrificed for this purpose, how much time and money should we expend on different forms of communication or should we grasp the 21st century and put it all online?

Our team newsletter "Network" recently dropped from being published every 2 weeks, to every 4 weeks and we missed it. There were jobs needing to be advertised and pieces of news that needed to be circulated, so it is going back to 2 weekly.

The answer for some people may be for news to be published online on our Intranet (when it goes live) for people to access when they want it; or we could use RSS feeds to keep people up to date when new items appears. A video on YouTube gives an explanation about what an RSS feed is.

The refurbishment project is involving many people inside the organisation and external companies. After some research I decided that we would use a Web 2.0 system called Basecamp
which has given us a shared site for messages, files, a timeline and an all important to do list.

Web products are definitely the way forward for those with access to the Internet another 5 minute video explaining how the web has progressed, but we also have to remember that not everyone has access to or is able to use the Internet with a sense of confidence. Whilst I would expect our staff to be improving their IT skills we have many volunteers, who need to be kept informed using more traditional methods of communication.

So the answer will always be a mix of paper and different forms of electronic communication, but we must not forget the importance of talking and listening. I have started giving regular briefings and am trying to do them every 4 to 6 weeks, with notes being published in Network. It gives my team a chance to hear me talk about what is happening and ask me questions.

Last week I was joined by Jane Rutherford our Acting Chairman of the Board of Trustees, her words and enthusiasm and support for staff were inspiring; but more than that it connected our Trustee Board more closely to the staff and volunteers and I shall definitely be making sure that there is one Trustee at every briefing.

St Nicholas Hospice today

St Nicholas Hospice is in Bury St Edmunds Suffolk and all the staff and volunteers that work there are passionate about improving the lives of people who have have life threatening illnesses and their families.

I have the privilege of leading the team as Chief Executive. My blog will try and keep you up to date what is happening at the Hospice and the ideas we have for the future.