Well last week was one that was jam packed
with different experiences. There was a Remuneration Committee meeting, where among
other things I learnt much about the incomprehensibility of the NHS ‘Very
Senior Managers’ pay guidance, and the possible introduction of a ‘portfolio
salary’ approach in the future – yes I can feel your envy at the sheer excitement
of my life. I hired the largest van I have ever driven and took the last load
of furniture up to Scotland and drove back in the fog. Whilst I was packing yet
another box, I came across a photo album (younger readers ask your parents what
this is). It was a photographic record of my first trip to New York, nearly 25
years ago now. The Twin Towers still stood, and my body still looked good too!
I had another one of those
‘Hello, are you Tony?’ experiences, where someone you don’t know, but who knows
of you, comes up and introduces themselves. Something I find very strange these
days (but that’s the subject for a different blog). In this case it was a young
man, who unbeknown to me, was the son of J’s brother. He was working in the van
hire shop. He had seen my name on the computer and recognised it, and just
wanted to say hello! And then there was the cooker repair man experience. I
watched in amazement as he removed what looked like 100s of screws to get
inside the oven and replace a broken element. I was fascinated to see them all
being put back in again, the oven switched on and normal cooking service
resumed. Brilliant!
However, last Friday evening’s
experience was a very painful one. Like every week for the last 10 weeks, I had
spent the previous two days moving very heavy objects, loading and unloading
these into vans as part of a complicated series of house moves. The result has been
the onset of lateral epicondylitis (or Tennis Elbow to you and me). If you have
ever experienced this, you will know just how painful and debilitating the
condition can be. But it wasn’t this that caused the pain. It was the sad news
that following a very short illness, Dianne Oxberry had died aged just 51 years
old. Possibly for many folk living outside the North West of England, they may
not have heard of Dianne even though she had many roles on TV over the years. She
was a weather presenter extraordinaire on our local BBC news programme North
West Tonight (@BBCNWT). Famous for her fabulous high heels, razor sharp wit and
championing the equal rights of women. Like many others, my thoughts are with
her husband and her two young children at this very sad time.
What made the evening painful and
very poignant was the way her colleagues delivered the @BBCNWT programme. There
was a great deal of raw emotion on display and many of her long-term colleagues
and friends joined the programme to pay their tributes. It was both hard to
watch and difficult to deal with the suddenness of the news. There was no
weather report presented that night. I was struck by the outpourings of love for
Dianne, both from those in the studio and those sending in messages via social media.
She will be missed by many.
One of those in the studio talked
of having sat with Dianne early in the week as she lay in the Christie
Hospital. He told of how he held her hand as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
I’m sure it will have brought her great comfort. It also made me think about
those who in similar situations who don’t have friends and family around them
at such a time. I was going to write ‘except with just nurses to care for them
as they pass from this life’ – but I changed my mind.
Let me explain. Last week the
University of Salford ‘graduated’ its first cohort of Trainee Nursing Associates.
They were a great bunch, all ages and from all walks of life. There were many senior
nurses and managers from the local health economy there to share in the celebrations.
Now the introduction of these new entrants
to the health and social care workforce has not been greeted with universal
approval. There are many qualified nurses who see the Nursing Associate as some
kind of threat to the profession. I’m not so sure. They will be regulated by the
NMC and have a very different curriculum underpinning their education and
training to that of qualified nurses. Their scope of practice obviously reflects
this difference in education. At the celebration last week, they were described
as a group that will take on some of the practical tasks of qualified nurses
freeing them up to take on some of the more complex tasks. In the context of
Dianne’s death, I wondered about this notion of complexity. I thought about the
man who held Dianne’s hand as she slowly left this world. Is holding someone’s
hand in such a situation a complex task? No, but perhaps knowing when to reach
out and do so requires a different mindset. Maybe that comes with experience alongside
education and training.
Coincidentally, last week the BBC
in Northern Ireland reported on the fact that older students studying to become
qualified nurses bring an all-important ‘life experience’ to the nursing
profession. Student nurses in Northern Ireland still get a bursary. A third of
students at the prestigious Russell Group UK Queen’s University in Belfast have
started their nurse education ‘a little later in life’. It was the same situation
in England before the bursary was scrapped. However, in England, Trainee Nursing
Associates get paid at Band 3 of the National Agenda for Change pay scale. Time
will tell if these new entrants to the traditional workforce really do support the
existing professions. I do know that whoever it is, when the time comes, I want
someone there to reach out and hold my hand, if just for a moment.
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