Meet our Interim Chief Nurse New uniform rollout

Dame Elaine Inglesby-Burke has spent over 44 years working in the NHS and brings a wealth of experience as she joins LUHFT as our Interim Chief Nurse.

It was in 1980 that Elaine qualified as a registered nurse at Warrington District General Hospital and has worked in the North West in a variety of positions, including ward manager and nurse specialist. She has held executive nurse director positions since 1996. In 2004 she became the Chief Nurse at Salford Royal. Looking ahead to the next six months, Dame Elaine said: “First and foremost I’ll be listening to you and your leadership teams, working alongside you to help you find solutions to issues that have been frustrating you in delivering what you believe is the best care to patients, families and indeed to each other. “My focus will primarily be that we safely staff our wards and departments, that we continue to improve the fundamentals of care that we deliver every day and lastly to review our clinical governance systems, so we can learn from incidents to enable us deliver care that is both safe and reliable.

“I would wish to continue, at pace, the work that has already begun in developing our clinical/academic career framework, from our fabulous newly Registered Nurses through to hopefully appointing our first Professor of Nursing and all the exciting roles in between. I know there is much to be done to ensure you are supported fully in practice from the beginning of your career to making decisions on how you may wish to flexibly wind down from serving our patients and their families. I am hoping the improvements will mean you will all have the opportunity and confidence to spend your whole career with us here at LUHFT.

“There is much to do but I know I’m going to be working with some great teams, I’ve already met some of you, and I’ll continue to meet colleagues, including those working out of hours too so that I can understand the context and complexity of situations that you’re working in. I will be drawing on your expertise to help me help you to find solutions.” Dame Elaine’s work on patient safety and quality improvement has been recognised nationally. She has been a leading advocate in the campaign for hospitals to set staffing levels in the interests of patient safety, which was credited by Ruth May, Chief Nurse for England, along with the ‘Ward to Board’ programme which was developed across Salford Royal and rolled out nationally. She also served on the Prime Minister’s Nursing and Care Quality Forum and was the only nurse on the Berwick National Advisory Group of the Safety of Patients in England. It was in 2020 she was awarded a Damehood for services to nursing, following on from being awarded NHS England’s first national Chief Nursing Officer’s (CNO) Gold Award for Excellence in Nursing in 2019, and receiving a CBE in 2015 in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

New uniform rollout

One of our Trust-wide projects this year has been to standardise our clinical and patient-facing uniforms across the whole organisation to ensure staff and patients can easily identify roles.

In November we will start to receive delivery of our new clinical and patient-facing admin uniforms and then we will begin a phased rollout to all staff.

We have partnered with local uniform suppliers Meltemi and after staff consultation, the new clinical uniform will be a smart scrub-style top with smart trousers whilst patient-facing admin colleagues will receive a navy patterned blouse or navy shirt.

As the uniforms start to come in, they will be distributed and delivered to your departments and wards. We expect staff will have their uniform by the new year.

For further details and FAQs please check the intranet.

Our supporters raise £50,000 at spectacular Charity Ball

This month over 270 guests attended our Charity Ball raising an incredible £50,000 for our hospitals.

Situated in the impressive Titanic Hotel and Rum Warehouse, guests enjoyed a drinks reception, three-course meal and entertainment from Deana Walmsley, Up All Night, Andrew Dean Magic, Jokers Wild Casino, AV from Pete Pinnington Productions and radio DJ Pete Price.

“What an incredible evening with over £50,000 raised for Liverpool University Hospitals’ Charity. Long-Covid is impacting our staff and patients in many ways, and so we hope this contribution will go some way towards supporting the impact that COVID-19 is having on both the physical and mental health of our staff,” said Lauren Evans, Head of Fundraising. “It was wonderful to see so many supporters, volunteers and staff together having a fabulous time whilst raising much needed funds for our Trust. A special thank you to our Chair Sue Musson for her continued support and for being such an important part of our evening. “Also, a big thank you to our corporate sponsors who all made this event possible including Arup, Laing O’Rourke, IF Finishes Limited, Avrenim, FK Group, Connectus Business Solutions Limited, ISS, Drink Liverpool and Fishlocks Florist.”