A former Birmingham critical care nurse who has gone on to use his experience to deliver improvements in management roles is looking forward to doing the same as he begins a new chapter in his career with the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust.

Pete Gordon (pictured left) will begin work at the Trust, which covers Heartlands Hospital, Good Hope Hospital and Solihull Hospital, later this month taking on the role of director of improvement,

The role will involve working across the three sites looking at opportunities to help staff make improvements with the ultimate aim of improving patient experience and outcomes.

Pete started working in the NHS in 1987 when he commenced his nurse training in Birmingham. Since then he has held a number of roles as a nurse and manager.

He said: “‘I have worked in a number of areas and held a variety of roles in healthcare. In all of these roles it has always struck me that patients need to be at heart of everything we do. I think we sometimes forget this for a whole host of reasons.

“I think it’s really important for managers and leaders to spend time with frontline teams to understand and help them resolve the problems they often experience day in, day out. In my experience, improvement is usually too slow which leads to staff losing interest.

“I believe in an approach that actively encourages staff to try rapid improvements, see if they work and if they do, implement the improvements further and sustain them. If they don’t work, don’t give up, try again. Managers need to create the right environment for this to happen.”

Prior to starting work at the Trust, Pete has been working as part of an NHS national team, the Emergency Care Intensive Support Team (ECIST). The role included working across the health sector in England to improve the journey that urgent and emergency patients experience by encouraging the adoption of known good practice.

Pete said: “The experience of working with multiple organisations, clinicians and managers has been invaluable as it has enabled him to clearly see the approaches that work and those that are less likely to when organisations are trying to deliver improvements. I’m really looking forward to bringing this experience to the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust.”

Pete said that he is excited about joining the team at the Trust, meeting frontline staff and to help them improve the care patients receive – his aim throughout his career within the NHS.

Pete added: “For me, when I look at any problem in healthcare, I think to myself, ‘is this good enough for my family?

“If the answer is no, then I think we need to do the right things to ensure it is.”

Meanwhile, a former director at the Trust has returned to the organisation to help boost performance at its three hospitals.

Amanda Markall has joined the Trust from The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in Birmingham and takes on the role of planned care specialist on an interim basis to support performance improvements across 18 week referral to treatment times and cancer pathways.

Amanda (pictured left) has almost 30 years of experience within the NHS and has worked for the Heart of England Trust before in a variety of capacities, although she started out in her career as a registered general nurse.

Amanda, from Harborne, said she is joining a ‘strong and motivated’ team at the Trust and is keen to use her extensive experience to drive continued improvement.

She said: “I’m delighted to be back at the Trust and I’m looking forward to taking on the challenges that lie ahead in the coming months. I am joining a great team and I hope to add my experience to create positive outcomes and continue to improve patient care and the services we offer to the communities we serve.

“I have gained a great deal of skills and knowledge over my 30 years in the NHS but have never lost sight of the core principles I learnt in my days as a registered general nurse – those of care, compassion and integrity and that still underpins everything I do.

“I will be working closely with clinical teams and heads of operations across our three hospitals as well as well as externally with our commissioners and GPs to look at how we can reduce the amount of time patients are waiting for their outpatient appointment, procedure or surgery and therefore improve overall the quality of care that they receive.

“These patients may have life threatening or debilitating conditions, are often in pain and may be experiencing associated social and emotional problems as a result of their conditions.

“They need their surgery quickly and we need to do all we can to be giving our patients certainty that when we bring them into hospital their surgery or procedure will not be cancelled”