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@RUHBath
Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust
The staff newspaper of the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust Page 2 ?
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March 2017
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Values are one year old In September 2015 we launched our values programme. This programme was a way to bring together colleagues, patients and carers to co-create a set of shared values and behaviours at a time when the RUH was changing: maternity services and the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases (RNHRD) had just joined us. Following 1000 hours of listening to over 800 staff and approximately 100 patients and carers, our new values were formed: Everyone Matter, Working Together, Making a Difference. Our values were publicly launched in January 2016 and reflect the things that we heard make the most difference to the experience of being cared for and working at the RUH. The values also encompass the things we can all do to keep improving. So, a year later, what have we done to keep making our values matter? From the values listening events we learnt how important it is for you all to feel appreciated in your jobs. Many of you felt appreciated by our patients but not by your managers, described by some as ‘recognition of only unfulfilled tasks’, and ‘I’m already giving my all’. One of our values is Everyone Matters and so we wanted to bring that value
alive by encouraging colleagues and especially managers to appreciate the efforts of their team members and colleagues in others teams who are often working in difficult circumstances. To do this we introduced a web-based tool called ThanksBox – another way of saying thank you via a computer or smartphone. If you don’t already know how to find ThanksBox, you can find the icon on your desktop. You can also download the app for free by searching for ‘ThanksBox’ in the App Store. If you have any questions about ThanksBox, Beth Powell will be happy to help x5594. As well as offering another way of recognising staff, ThanksBox measures how we are using our values in practice. So far 2714 messages of thanks have been sent, including 556 for Making a Difference by ‘being responsive and efficient’ and 17 messages have been send to colleagues demonstrating Everyone Matters by ‘being calm and reassuring’. During the 1000 hours of listening which was used to develop our values, a common theme emerged about how sometimes the systems and processes we use at the RUH can
prevent us doing the best job we can. One colleague said the following anonymously via the Friends and Family Test: “On the whole this organisation takes care of its staff. In the main ideas and innovations are supported and encourages which makes us feel values. However, as times there is a ridiculous number of hoops to jump through to get things done and this can be immensely frustrating and feel stifling.” In response to this, Chief Executive James Scott invited us all to take five minutes to complete a survey to help increase his understanding of the ‘hoops’ we all experience at work and how they can be overcome. One of the areas which you told us would make a difference was an improvement to some of our processes, one of which was recruitment. So we have been working with managers and those new to the RUH to find out what’s important to them using ‘systems thinking’ to streamline the recruitment process. This is work in progress, and we need to continue working with many people to make improvements. What’s next? It’s important that we keep paying attention to ways in which we can live our values and behaviours so they can help us make a positive
difference to the experience of being cared for and working at the RUH and how we can keep improving. You can find out more about our values by visiting the Intranet homepage. Just click on the values icon.
Have you got a story? If you’ve got a suggestion for something you’d like to see in here, please get in touch. Call x6278 or email ruh-tr.communicationteam@nhs.net @RUHBath, the staff newspaper, is also available on the intranet.