Allocate Awards recognise Maternity Services’ big push for culture change
Congratulations to Royal Surrey’s Maternity Services and the Learning & Organisational Development (L&OD) teams who achieved highly commended in the Allocate Awards 2021 after entering the ‘creating a great place to work’ category.
With a strong focus on effective team working to support patient care, the Allocate Awards recognised the work of the Trust’s teams in tackling culture change and developing staff satisfaction and engagement.
Behind the success of the L&OD and Maternity teams’ achievement was a six-step change process that launched in 2019, following reports aimed at transforming maternity services nationwide.
The first step in the journey for Maternity was to carry out a survey among staff to understand the culture, leadership, teamwork and safety climate within the department. The survey’s results identified areas for improvement including work-life balance, a burnout climate, as well as teamwork and communication issues. A multi-professional project team came together with the aim of working closely with staff from the Maternity and Neonatal departments to tackle the issues.
Results were analysed and shared with staff as part of the next steps and discussed in focus groups to uncover ways to change. The final steps of the project involved improvements being put into place that were later reviewed to gauge effectiveness.
As a result, staff agreed small changes that could be implemented to improve the smooth running of the department, such as completing the bed state book to update ward clerks about patient admissions or ensuring consulting rooms were left ready for subsequent users.
Nicola Arnold, Head of Learning and Organisational Development at the Trust, said: “One of our main aims during this project was to connect the team to a shared purpose to ensure a leaner and safer way of delivering a service. Clear leadership from the team leader, engagement and buy in for staff to take ownership was a golden thread throughout.
“We used the Leading Well template to help transform the service and two years later have proved that effective team working brings higher levels of staff satisfaction and helps support patient care and innovation.”
Claire Worthington, Clinical Governance Lead Midwife, said: “I’m extremely proud that we achieved a highly commended recognition in the Allocate Awards and for all our hard work to get us to this point. The process has been really valuable and has resulted in a more cohesive team with increased staff engagement and satisfaction. Well done to all those involved.”
Amy Stubbs, Deputy Director of Midwifery, said: “I am extremely proud of our team for working together to achieve highly commended recognition in the Allocate Awards. Nicola and Claire engaged with all of the members of the Maternity team to identify areas for improvement, and since then the department has worked hard to implement the actions created as a result. These actions have, in turn, helped to improve patient care.”