Florence Nightingale Leadership Scholarship 2013-14.

I would like to record my sincere thanks for the opportunity I received for my professional and personal leadership development from the Florence Nightingale Foundation. The scholarship has provided a wealth of opportunities to be part of an internationally renowned educational programme at Harvard University and has opened the door for me to observe Board meetings in private, public and third sector organisations.

I wish to acknowledge the generous funding of the Burdett Trust for supporting my Scholarship, my personal gratitude to Liz Robb, CEO of the Florence Nightingale Foundation for her wise counsel; John Rivers, Chair of Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for providing mentorship and his experience in branding and reputation management and David Naylor who provided personal coaching and Jane Cummings, Chief Nursing Officer for England for sponsoring my attendance at NHS England Board meeting.

Developing a Christie Quality Mark for Patient Experience

In applying for the scholarship I had already identified the piece of work that I wanted to do as part of my scholarship and that was about developing a quality mark for patient experience at a tertiary cancer centre. The reason I had chosen this work was firstly because our patients had identified this is something that they wanted following consultation of the Trust’s 20:20 strategy and I also wanted to understand how the reputation and branding of an organisation affected patients, their families and the public’s perceptions of care and treatment.

It was my intention that the development of this work would provide an approach to quality and compliance that would ensure that the standards of ambulatory chemotherapy would at a minimum be the same wherever patients accessed the service across Greater Manchester and East Cheshire and to also provide stretch standards where exceeding the expectations of patient experience and care delivery could be aimed for.

The Leadership Scholarship

The Leadership scholarship provided an opportunity to extend my interest in Corporate Governance, risk management and how Boards of organisations work to understand their agenda’s and how they differ or are the same as Boards in other sector organisations. Through the Scholarship I had the opportunity to observe Boards across a number of sectors such as NHS England, a National Charity and a School Academy. This knowledge was enriched through the academic learning supported by access through the Scholarship to the Leading Organisational Change and Renewal programme from Stanford and enhanced further through the Harvard Executive leadership programme of Risk Management for Corporate Leaders. Through a planned programme of observing Board meetings and the executive leadership programmes it became apparent that no matter the sector of the Board or the business of the organisation that the same themes and issues run through them of risk management, customer voice and experience, quality service, financial viability and sustainability, the risks facing the organisation, reputation and personal and collective responsibilities and accountabilities.

The Scholarship not only provided the opportunities to gain further professional and personal development but provided the opportunities to develop new networks and professional contacts which provided a great source of wise counsel and resilience at a time when the executive leadership role in many NHS organisations was becoming more challenging. I am delighted that the project on developing a quality standard for patient experience is to be launched at our Annual Members Meeting in September and will be presented by the patients involved in its development.