7 Years in Wigan: My Life Before, During and After*

I have never been particularly interested in sport. I have never followed a football team, nor even been to a match. I had an intense dislike for PE at school and, apart from a brief period during my teens when I took up archery, have generally steered clear of sporting activities. That is until I was introduced to climbing by a colleague in 1984. Despite being slightly frightened of heights, I absolutely loved it. I practised on a climbing wall whenever I could and went out to climb every weekend. I thought about it as vertical ballet; all about balance, poise and above all, looking good! However, I can no longer squeeze my feet into my climbing shoes, Lycra looks daft on anyone over the age of 60 and arthritis in my hands meant I eventually had to stop climbing. I have taken up walking instead.

These days I do like a bit of a scramble in the hills. We are lucky to live close to both the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales. Of course, combining climbing and walking is usually associated with mountaineering, and I still hang on to a wishful ambition of trekking and climbing in the Himalayas. It’s probably not going to happen now. During my climbing days I bought and avidly read every book on climbing and mountaineering I could find. 

Last week, I ordered a new copy of the classic book Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer. It is a brilliant book and although the film of the book doesn’t do the story justice, it is still worth a look. You can find it on Netflix or Amazon, something J and I did one evening last week. It is a wonderful story, of adventure, exploration, learning about self, but most of all, about listening to others and trying to understand the way they experience the world.

Now you might be wondering what this has to do with health, nursing, education, or even the price of fish. Well Friday was the last day of my role as a Non-Executive Director at both Blackpool Teaching Hospitals and Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh (WWL) Teaching Hospitals. Yesterday was my first day as Chair of Stockport Foundation Trust. Whilst I had only been at Blackpool for just over a year (and what a year it has been) I was part of the WWL family for seven years. I have seen a lots of changes over that time, and have been involved in and led many of them. I like to think over  the years I made a difference. 

I came from a mental health background, so the workings of an acute hospital were somewhat alien to me. It took me several months just to learn what many of the abbreviations used actually meant. To this day I have an absolute dislike of abbreviations. During my time at WWL I was privileged to have worked alongside five Chief Nurses, two Medical Directors, two Chief Executives and many other Executive and Non-Executive Directors. They were/are a great bunch of people, and I gained so much from working with them.

In pre-pandemic times there were many opportunities to meet up, both from a business point of view but also socially. The annual Excellence Award night was always a great evening of celebration and fun, and of course, it was uplifting to hear about the many examples of improvements made to the care and treatment of patients and colleagues alike. I remember one notable evening when the compere (not a member of WWL staff) struggled throughout the whole evening with his attempts to pronounce many of the medical terms used. Defeated, he eventually gave up even attempting to pronounce the terms and used the audience to help him fill in the gaps.

There were sad times as well. We lost two Non-Executive Director colleagues in the same12 months. Both their deaths were unexpected, and their loss was felt by the whole Board for many months. In time we re-built the Board and were able to carry on the journey towards becoming an outstanding Trust. That journey involved many more people of course than just the Board. For many years we were the cleanest hospital in England, something I think which stood us in good stead as the pandemic hit us. We consistently met the national A&E targets and pre-pandemic, had our waiting lists down to single figures. All of this takes teamwork, a motivated and skilled group of colleagues, and excellent partnerships with other stakeholders. Wigan famously developed a unique model of public engagement, the ‘Wigan Deal’, to shape the way in which health and care services are provided, and importantly also addressing many of the social determinates of good health. The result has been nothing short of fantastic. There is a change in the way of working with people that has meant more power is given to patients and service users, a relationship that emphasises a ‘working with’ rather that a ‘doing to’ approach. A joined-up approach across all the various organisations that operate both in the public and voluntary sectors, with a shared purpose that underpins the combined contributions each organisation makes, is a critical requirement.

Achieving this can lead  to a different way of doing things that perhaps coalesces around four main areas: asset-based working, granting permission to innovate, investing in communities, and place-based working. If these areas sound familiar it is probably a consequence of the many discussions that have been ongoing since the UK Government published their White Paper in February this year. Unfortunately, the White Paper lacked an explicit description of what ‘place’ might mean. It does, however, seem clear to me that, like in Wigan, anchor organisations, such as NHS Acute Trusts, must work more closely with local people so as to nurture the resilience and strengths of individuals, families, and the communities they belong to. Such approaches are vital to building independence and greater self-reliance, reducing health inequalities, and promoting healthier life choices.

So, as I start my journey with my new family in Stockport, I don’t think I will have a mountain to climb in persuading my new colleagues to join me along the way. Just like Heinrich Harrer, we will take each day as it comes and keep on learning from the experiences of yesterday while keeping our eyes firmly on where we want to be.

*with apologies to Heinrich Harrer