Popping out to the resilience store

The worst queue I never stood in was on my arrival at Karachi airport. The customs/security hall was huge and filled with literally thousands of people. The flight I had arrived on had been 11.5 hours long. Although I had travelled with Emirates on that occasion, I hadn’t travelled business class. So I arrived tired and very much out of sorts. I was there as a guest of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation. Thankfully they had come to the airport and rescued me, swooshing me through the customs at breakneck speed. They simply circumvented the queue. I was very grateful.  

The worst queue I ever stood in was at Tel Aviv airport. We were returning from a pilgrimage across Israel, and traveling just before Easter. The queue was so long it snaked almost out of the departure building. It was hot, people were fractious, anxious about missing planes, hungry and thirsty too. It took over 3.5 hours to get to the check in desk. We got there some 30 minutes after our plane was meant to have departed. They held the plane. I was the last person to board. J was most impressed.

Now you may be asking why I’m telling you about these two experiences. Well, there is a reason. I spent a lot of time standing in a variety of different queues last week. Surprisingly, I was the epitome of patience. Each queue provided me with time to reminisce over similar experiences. Each experience added to my ability to just be patient. My patience might have been also partly due to my reading of the entire Jack Reacher collection of novels over the years. For those not familiar with the books, Reacher has a laid back approach to life. Things will either turn out right or they won’t. Whatever the situation, hope for the best, and prepare for the worst. I’ve found it a useful way to navigate life. Control the things you can, and go with the flow with the things you can’t. In part, it’s how I developed my ‘resilience store’.   

You may not have heard this term before. My long time co-author, Professor Sue McAndrew, and I first used the term in a chapter we wrote for McAllister and Lowe’s book ‘Nurses making a difference: strategies for empowering your practice’ way back in 2011. Our chapter looked at how nurses might best develop their resilience in dealing with the challenges of practice. And goodness, the last few years have proved to be the most challenging many nurses have ever experienced.

Last week, this was something I had a conversation about with a couple of my nursing colleagues as we stood in a queue waiting to get our buffet lunch. My colleagues shared with me what frontline practice had been like for them during these past couple of years, and what they and their colleagues were doing to deal with the impact on their wellbeing as they addressed these challenges each day. Resilience was an attribute they were proud they possessed.

The occasion was one of our Long Service Award ceremonies. We were in the company of 70 colleagues who had each worked in my hospital for at least 20 years. Across the Trust we have 250 colleagues from all areas who have all also worked for 20 years in the NHS. Collectively this represents some 5,000 years of service to the NHS. I was impressed and humbled in equal measure. It also reminded me of my age. I had also spent 20 years working in the NHS, then 21 years in higher education, including nearly 10 years as Dean of a very large School of Health, before returning to the NHS 4 years ago as a Non Executive Director and Chair of a large acute Foundation Trust. Whilst I have lots of stories from these years, it was simply amazing to hear each of my colleagues’ stories. The NHS is a wonderful institution and, it’s the NHS family that makes it so. We should keep fighting for its continued future as a ‘free to access’ public service.

Resilience and fighting for the NHS’s future were also key focuses of this year’s NHS Providers annual conference. The conference was held in the wonderful city of Liverpool, a special place for J and I. Over the two days, there were plenty of queues of course, mainly for food and drink. The theme resilience was explored through the lens of all aspects of health and social care. So, there were often conversations about people, but also of services, buildings, technology and partnerships. Protecting our NHS people was very much the number one priority. Both Wes Streeting (Labour) and Steve Barclay (the other party) spoke. I can’t say I was impressed with either. As I’m steering clear of politics, I will leave it there. A 17% pay rise for nurses? Hearing from them both, I don’t think that will happen.

I was, however, impressed by one of the sessions I went to that explored ways of promoting greater equality, diversity and inclusion in our organisations. There was much that I took away to ponder on, but one of the standout take-home messages for me was the concept of ‘brave spaces’. This was a concept posited by Edgar Schein in his book, ‘Humble Inquiry’ (worth a read). It looks at the development of both ‘safe spaces’ and ‘brave spaces’ in enabling colleagues at all levels in an organisation to gain a voice. This is a voice that might challenge, be critical, pick up on unacceptable practice or behaviours and, of course, raise new ideas. We may have the freedom to speak up, but often this can be very difficult. Feeling safe and being invited to be brave might just be the way to give more people a voice.

The last queue from last week was the bittersweet one my mother and father now find themselves standing in. My mother is increasingly living with the ever encroaching impacts of dementia. Up to now the only support they have received has been from family. Now both health and social services have got involved and they are in the system. But like most queues, there is likely to be a long wait before they see any action. Sadly, I feel their resilience store is almost exhausted.