HEFMA will begin the celebration of its 25-year anniversary at this year’s national Leadership Forum on May 10 - 11. The South West Branch is hosting and the venue is the De Vere Cotswold Water Park Hotel in the heart of the unique Cotswold Water Park. (Click here to read more about the venue).
The theme of this important event is Resilience - Bend or Break. To be resilient means to be flexible; it also means to be tough. Both of these meanings apply to qualities that are necessary for today's NHS - and the people working within it. (Click here to read the thoughts of SW Branch Chair, Adrian Eggleton about the theme).
The Forum programme will focus on case studies, tools and inspiration to build resilience at all levels – operationally and personally and as always will offer some excellent networking opportunities.
Here are some of the highlights of the programme.
Chairing the event is Peter Hancock, Chief Executive of Pride of Britain Hotels. This is a collection of independent, luxury hotels, which provides its members with a wide range of marketing services.
Hancock began his career as a waiter in the late 1970s and has worked his way to the top of his field via a succession of hotel and restaurant managerial positions and a directorship of guide publisher, Johansens. His life experiences, sense of humour, ability to ad-lib and story-tell mean he is much in demand as a public speaker.
The Keynote address on day one of the Forum will be delivered by Simon Corben, NHS Improvement Director and Head of Profession for Estates and Facilities. Corben will provide an update on NHS Improvement’s work programme and future direction of travel.
NHS Improvement Directors Cliff Howell (Operational Lead) and Jo Dolby (Commercial Lead) will both lead Breakout Sessions. These sessions divide delegates into smaller groups to focus on areas of particular interest in a more informal environment.
Jo Dolby will provide an overview of NHS Improvement’s estates and facilities capital commercial workstreams with a particular focus on PFI and other outsourced FM services including contract management. She will also examine how Trusts can derive additional value and assurance. Cliff Howell will focus on the Model Hospital and issues relating to the Estates and Facilities workforce.
A third Breakout Session will be run by Sarah Erskine and Rachel Eggleton from Footsteps Counselling and Care – a charity in Gloucester - on the theme of personal resilience. Entitled ‘Bouncing Back’ the session will explore what personal resilience means, where it comes from and what an individual can do to improve it. Erskine and Eggleton are both counsellors at the Footsteps charity.
They will also present an overview of the work of the charity on the main stage of the Forum. Footsteps Counselling and Care aims to provide professional and timely counselling to people in Gloucestershire who have suffered trauma during pregnancy of birth, are suffering from post or pre-natal depression, have lost a baby for any reason, or are struggling with fertility issues and childlessness.
A session jointly delivered by Alan Cordwell (Head of Group Emergency Planning, Resilience & Response Unit for the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group) and Bernard Flanagan (Head of Estates & Facilities for The Christie NHS Foundation Trust) will address ‘Building resilience from major incidents.’
Bernard Flanagan is a qualified Mechanical Engineer who has worked in the NHS since 1991. He has held a number of Estates & Facilities roles, including 10 years as Head of Estates & Facilities at Liverpool Women’s Hospital until November 2015 when he left to assume his present role at The Christie.
The Christie is a world-renowned cancer facility – the largest single-site cancer centre in Europe - specialising in cancer care, research and education. In April last year fire broke out at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, a building located next to The Christie hospital. Flanagan will discuss the immediate impact of the fire and the lessons learned.
Another disastrous event took place in Manchester last year that also had a significant impact on local health service providers: on May 22, a shrapnel-laden homemade bomb was detonated as people – many of them children and teenagers – were leaving the Manchester Arena following a concert by American singer, Ariana Grande. Alan Cordwell will outline details of the bomb attack, the subsequent impact on healthcare facilities at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Trust and the co-ordinated response that mitigated the effects of the attack.
Cordwell, who began his NHS career in 1997 as a Staff Nurse in the Emergency Department at Bury General Hospital and has served in the Army Reserves where he was deployed to Iraq and served in Basra – moved into Emergency Planning in 2009. He gained the Diploma in Health and Emergency Planning in 2011 and since then has striven to raise the profile of emergency planning. He has designed, implemented and delivered training in models of emergency and business continuity management to health personnel.
The programme will also feature an update on HEFMA’s activities from National Chair, Jonathan Stewart and Team Resilience from Geoff Neild, who heads up the Association’s Learning and Development workstream. Cliff Howell will also take part in this session.
A final Keynote presentation on day two to conclude the Forum will be delivered by Martine Wright MBE who will continue the theme of Personal Resilience.
Martine Wright is the most injured survivor from the London Underground terror attacks of 7/7. She was trapped for over an hour, lost 80% of her blood supply and both legs above the knee. Her inspirational presentation will recount not only how she survived one of the worst terrorist attacks in British history, but also how she turned that trauma and tragedy into hope.
Since that day she has rebuilt her life: she has skydived, learned to fly, become a wife, mother, captain of the British Paralympic Sitting Volleyball team, Ambassador, patron and a motivational speaker.
The full programme for this 2018 Forum will be available very soon. Watch this space for more information.
