Latest / Tom's Hirschsprung's Podcast / Episode 48 - With Paul Balson from Great Ormond Street Hospital

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Episode 48 - With Paul Balson from Great Ormond Street Hospital · Tom's Hirschsprung's Podcast

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Speaker 1: You are listening to Tom's Hirshprung's podcast, where I provide
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Speaker 1: a look into the remarkable experiences of the most inspiring
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Speaker 1: people around Hirshprung's disease and sports.
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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to episode forty eight of Tom's Hirshbrum's podcast.
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Speaker 2: I've got a very special guest for you today, very
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Speaker 2: special to me personally. This person works at Great Organd Street,
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Speaker 2: a hospital that I was there for about sixteen years.
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Speaker 2: So I'm incredibly grateful to Gosh, incredibly excited to hear
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Speaker 2: what's going to be said today and we'll report Welcome
1:05
Speaker 2: to the podcast. Thank you, but having it no problem
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Speaker 2: at all now. I think before we get into talking
1:12
Speaker 2: about God, I believe you are the first guest I've
1:15
Speaker 2: actually met in person. Because other people might not know this,
1:19
Speaker 2: but we we did meet at the Great Ormond Street
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Speaker 2: five K. We'll be talking about three weeks ago something
1:27
Speaker 2: or other as we sit here and record how how
1:31
Speaker 2: was the five k for you? I know you didn't
1:33
Speaker 2: didn't run it, but the how was how did you
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Speaker 2: find everything at the Gods five k? Well me the
1:40
Speaker 2: other governments. We managed to hit five k from our
1:42
Speaker 2: steps by walking around recruited people Hurdley, So so it's
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Speaker 2: one of the highlights of our year recruitment wise. So
1:49
Speaker 2: we are a foundation trust and that's means we're kind
1:52
Speaker 2: of accountable to the local population, but we also need
1:56
Speaker 2: to engage and recruit that population. So it was a
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Speaker 2: really great success for us just in terms of numbers
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Speaker 2: we recruited, but also in terms of the quality of
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Speaker 2: conversation we had with those people who are joining up.
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Speaker 2: And then this is one of the obviously the fruits
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Speaker 2: and the benefits of that is we get to go
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Speaker 2: on the podcast and we get to talk about membership
2:14
Speaker 2: to a wider audience. I order, it wouldn't every meat brilliant, Yeah,
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Speaker 2: it was. It was a really great success for us.
2:22
Speaker 2: We recruited around about forty that's brilliant. That's absolutely fantastic
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Speaker 2: And for anybody's who's not been before, it is a
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Speaker 2: really really good day. I mean, there's it's not just
2:33
Speaker 2: turn up at Hyde Park, run by k and go home.
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Speaker 2: There's there's so many things to do. It's very child
2:40
Speaker 2: friendly as well. There's lots of stores. I think there's
2:43
Speaker 2: bungee gungee jumping, all sorts of things and trampolines and
2:47
Speaker 2: yeah everything. So yeah, no, for anybody who's not done it,
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Speaker 2: it's a it's a fantastic and it's the family that out.
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Speaker 2: I think, well, there are lots of families there and
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Speaker 2: it was good. Absolutely. Yes. I ran it the psych
3:00
Speaker 2: pay with my mum, so we were Yeah, so we
3:03
Speaker 2: we got around the course, we round the whole way,
3:06
Speaker 2: so I was I was very pleased. And yeah, no,
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Speaker 2: and a lovely day and a lovely course as well.
3:11
Speaker 2: I thought, you run sort of right across the river
3:13
Speaker 2: and I think it's fantastic. Oh wow. Yeah. So I've
3:18
Speaker 2: never wanted to do it myself, but then I've always
3:20
Speaker 2: had to do the recruitment stand that's my excuse. Anyway
3:23
Speaker 2: you get out of it that way little and just
3:28
Speaker 2: on the recruitment as well. You touched a little bit
3:31
Speaker 2: on it there, but would you mind just sort of
3:34
Speaker 2: explaining what the foundation trust is and sort of how
3:38
Speaker 2: you're involved in the community. Yeah. So, but being a
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Speaker 2: foundation trust it means when we applied for it in
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Speaker 2: twenty eleven, I wasn't here at the time, but becoming
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Speaker 2: a foundation trust it gives hospitals more autonomy to manage
3:51
Speaker 2: the job. But at the same time, they're accountable to
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Speaker 2: their local population. So it works with other hospitals who
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Speaker 2: become foundation trusts by their local neighborhood. Is there stay
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Speaker 2: gap for gotch our neighborhood is the entire ignorand and
4:04
Speaker 2: Wales it's a lost Yeah, so we we've cast the
4:09
Speaker 2: recruitment net far and wind. But it's something that not
4:12
Speaker 2: many hospitals have crapped is getting that level of communication
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Speaker 2: between its members. So to become a member, you sign
4:20
Speaker 2: online or you fill in the form and you've become
4:22
Speaker 2: a member. And there's like three tiers have engaged. Bottom
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Speaker 2: one is you receive the email I'll get involved once
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Speaker 2: a caught up, just read it although it's really trystintails,
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Speaker 2: but what's going on clinical developments. And then there's like
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Speaker 2: a medium level where you read the magazine and you
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Speaker 2: come along to some of the engagement events, come and
4:41
Speaker 2: talk to people. And then the top level is you
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Speaker 2: become a governor. So just briefly, the Council of Governors
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Speaker 2: is kind of like the local stakeholder board. It sits
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Speaker 2: next to the trust board and then they work together
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Speaker 2: to sort of set the direction and strategy for the
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Speaker 2: trust and it's a really good way of giving back
5:00
Speaker 2: time effort. It's a great experience as well. I mean,
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Speaker 2: I'm not sure how many people would get to sit
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Speaker 2: on the board of a multi billion dound organization like God.
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Speaker 2: So it's a good opportunity. But like I said, not
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Speaker 2: many trubs around the country have got that blow of
5:15
Speaker 2: members giving governors how information, how they feel, and then
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Speaker 2: governors communicating to members. But we're confident we're going to
5:21
Speaker 2: get it cracked this year. So like this podcast is
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Speaker 2: hopefully the start of a positive rolling absolutely, and I
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Speaker 2: think as you touched on their communication is just so important.
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Speaker 2: I think in all businesses and all sort of fat sets,
5:37
Speaker 2: you know, if you can sort of especially as you
5:39
Speaker 2: talk about sort of the first here about just knowing
5:44
Speaker 2: what's going on, because I know we were talking a
5:47
Speaker 2: little bit offline, and I've spoken to people who have
5:51
Speaker 2: been into God's recently and they find that communication really
5:56
Speaker 2: really important. And it's just because obviously it can be
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Speaker 2: a very worry time child's a hospital, you're going through
6:03
Speaker 2: all sorts, having that sort of what's going on, what
6:08
Speaker 2: research is being done, et cetera, et cetera, it can
6:13
Speaker 2: be very well, it's very very important. So it was
6:17
Speaker 2: kind of pointed out to us yesterday. It's kind of
6:19
Speaker 2: really obvious. Actually we had the WHITEPF takeover, so the
6:23
Speaker 2: Young People's Forum, they come in and they take over
6:26
Speaker 2: somebody's role for a day. So my line manager was
6:29
Speaker 2: fifteen years old yesterday, I was very So we decided
6:33
Speaker 2: to do an engagement a bit and it made it
6:34
Speaker 2: crystal clear that when you're recruiting people, nobody's good time
6:38
Speaker 2: for it in hospital. So when you're at hospital, even
6:40
Speaker 2: if everything goes swimmingly well, you're not in the mood
6:44
Speaker 2: for engagement or recruitment or additional conversations. So that made
6:49
Speaker 2: it quite clear that the only way we can recruit
6:51
Speaker 2: effectively is opposite when the stresses off a little bit
6:54
Speaker 2: as a little bit less pressure. So it made it
6:56
Speaker 2: quite clear. So that's our new ain't really is to
6:59
Speaker 2: get to these events where there's no time pressure or
7:02
Speaker 2: pressure about being in hospital and sort of get people
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Speaker 2: to have a conversation about what it's like to be
7:06
Speaker 2: a gosh. And it was kind of groundbreaking really. Yeah. No,
7:11
Speaker 2: and sometimes I guess also from many business standpoints, having
7:16
Speaker 2: a different point of view just or someone coming at
7:20
Speaker 2: it from a different angle can be you know, enlightening
7:24
Speaker 2: in some some facets. It was also hilarious. We were saying, now,
7:29
Speaker 2: one of our big pictures to recruit members was to
7:32
Speaker 2: have an online legs treman and she said, no, that
7:35
Speaker 2: is absolutely tedious and more obviously Sally's really quite Yeah.
7:41
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, you know, spotling them when she's
7:42
Speaker 2: our target audience. So we really want to recruit young
7:45
Speaker 2: people are quiring about the young experience, and then we're
7:47
Speaker 2: doing online lectures that's scaring them off in their droves.
7:49
Speaker 2: Then I was like, Okay, that's a non starter. We're
7:52
Speaker 2: not going to do that. Is that potentially because well,
7:56
Speaker 2: I guess a lot of people had online learning through
7:59
Speaker 2: COVID and that that kind of thing. Yeah, I mean
8:03
Speaker 2: it's fine once or twice, but can but certainly through
8:08
Speaker 2: COVID and when I was doing my teaching and everything
8:10
Speaker 2: through that to get a little bit samey and yeah not.
8:15
Speaker 2: I mean I used to love quizzes, but I hope
8:18
Speaker 2: to never ever lived to another Zoom quiz in my life.
8:20
Speaker 2: And it's absolutely I think we all got sick of them.
8:24
Speaker 2: Laughter the second week or everyone had It's great. This
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Speaker 2: quiz I'll do this, I'll do this round and that
8:31
Speaker 2: round and a picture around it or whatever. And then
8:34
Speaker 2: after week two we went yeah, this is this is
8:36
Speaker 2: this is go work. Yeah. Actually, like you know anything online,
8:40
Speaker 2: it gives the impression that you're just ticking a box.
8:42
Speaker 2: If you care that your come in person. It was like, yeah,
8:45
Speaker 2: that's that's fair, fair enough. So it was a wednesdaying
8:48
Speaker 2: day yesterday talking about our engagement ideas. So it was
8:53
Speaker 2: really really good. I mean, I just love talking to
8:55
Speaker 2: the beat from the young people to because they're just
8:58
Speaker 2: I'm not sure of the experiences that have had, but
9:00
Speaker 2: they've just all seem so mature and so driven then
9:03
Speaker 2: in any field, and it's it really is one of
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Speaker 2: just so refreshing and I think about how well, how
9:10
Speaker 2: I wasn't there at their age. It's just, you know,
9:12
Speaker 2: ariss is unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, I mean, but I actually
9:16
Speaker 2: said that they are your target audience. They are hopefully
9:21
Speaker 2: the future the future governors, the future members, the future
9:26
Speaker 2: you know, the future people who will run or run
9:29
Speaker 2: the organization. Yeah, I mean, and we were like that
9:32
Speaker 2: man as governors. But at the same time, you understand it,
9:35
Speaker 2: it's very formative those years of your life and you
9:37
Speaker 2: have to sort of really study hard and but at
9:40
Speaker 2: the same time having you know, being a governor of
9:43
Speaker 2: GOSH when your CE or your UCAS appliration, that's not
9:46
Speaker 2: bad either, very very true, very true. And then if
9:50
Speaker 2: we move on as well, So just the patient care
9:55
Speaker 2: of GOSH, I mean, everybody who has been through great
10:00
Speaker 2: orband Street, and even people who haven't but has heard
10:04
Speaker 2: of great Orband Street will know that it is world
10:07
Speaker 2: renowned in terms of its care that it gets its patient.
10:12
Speaker 2: Obviously I was. I was sent there very young. I
10:16
Speaker 2: lived nowhere near London, and I was sent there because
10:21
Speaker 2: of the specialist care that that GOSS provide. So in
10:27
Speaker 2: terms of that, why is GOSS sort of so world
10:33
Speaker 2: renowned for its care of complex conditions? Good question. I
10:42
Speaker 2: think it's a reputation built up over time. Incrementally for
10:48
Speaker 2: me as an employee, I think our values are really
10:50
Speaker 2: really powerful, so always carrying, always one team, always expert,
10:55
Speaker 2: and that permeates everything we do. We have a very
10:58
Speaker 2: very acchy strategy above them on there we all feel
11:00
Speaker 2: like we unified in one direction. But so the feedback
11:04
Speaker 2: that I get more than anywhere else is that we
11:09
Speaker 2: are sort of pild first as always, and it's more
11:12
Speaker 2: than they care. It's the school time. We keep that
11:15
Speaker 2: going for them. And we have Laity, which I think
11:18
Speaker 2: a lot a lot of other people do. The charity
11:20
Speaker 2: is very good and they provide the play team. They
11:22
Speaker 2: team just provides so much for the patients. You know,
11:25
Speaker 2: they provide birthdays if they have their birth The patients
11:28
Speaker 2: have their birthdays here Christmas give them like just like
11:32
Speaker 2: creative play things to do during the day in the
11:35
Speaker 2: down time. I could imagine the downtime was quite bad.
11:38
Speaker 2: My only hospital experience was with my partner when we're
11:43
Speaker 2: having the child. You know, obviously nobody cared about me
11:45
Speaker 2: sleeping on our comor chair, but the downtime was just
11:50
Speaker 2: so just so the moynamically boring this child here. I
11:57
Speaker 2: can imagine. It's so I'm a play team doing really well. Yeah, absolutely, no,
12:03
Speaker 2: I think, And I can talk from first had experience,
12:07
Speaker 2: and I we're going back fifteen sixteen years or whatever
12:10
Speaker 2: it might be. So when I was there, but all
12:13
Speaker 2: of the operations I had, it always felt as though
12:17
Speaker 2: it was child sensed and child first and that and
12:23
Speaker 2: that was so so important to me and so important
12:25
Speaker 2: to my parents at the time. Obviously, when you're going
12:28
Speaker 2: through a lot of the surgeries that I went through
12:32
Speaker 2: were sort of life saving surgery. So when you're going
12:35
Speaker 2: through that sort of stressful time, knowing that you are
12:38
Speaker 2: in the very best hat is I can imagine, is
12:42
Speaker 2: incredibly comforting. I think the best thing we do here
12:47
Speaker 2: is the trust board. They start off every trust board
12:49
Speaker 2: with a patient story, so it helps keep the trust
12:53
Speaker 2: board connected, like right at the start, well, they have
12:55
Speaker 2: the finance, the woman's wet, the annual reports, they have
13:00
Speaker 2: a patient story, and they're not always seeing Gosh's praises
13:03
Speaker 2: sometimes the old things that we could do better, and
13:06
Speaker 2: it keeps things kind of very focused. And the non
13:10
Speaker 2: sens directors do walk arounds and again you know they
13:13
Speaker 2: don't always hear blowing praises. There's something that we could
13:15
Speaker 2: do this better, we could do this for treat starbet
13:18
Speaker 2: do this. So I think having an open and honest
13:22
Speaker 2: approach to how we do business or how how we
13:25
Speaker 2: deliver care, but also looking to always improve. We're never
13:28
Speaker 2: sort of resting on our laurels. I think that's incredibly important.
13:33
Speaker 2: I think when and then does for any business isn't it.
13:36
Speaker 2: You You want that honest feedback, and sometimes it is
13:40
Speaker 2: difficult to hear, you know it. Sometimes I'm just sort
13:44
Speaker 2: of talking about this podcast as well. Sometimes I have
13:47
Speaker 2: made changes based on feedback that I thought was going
13:51
Speaker 2: really well, and people are said back and gone, yeah,
13:54
Speaker 2: I don't like this. I wish you could change that,
13:56
Speaker 2: And I've thought, yeah, actually, even though it's difficulty here,
13:59
Speaker 2: you're right and then it makes things better. So it's
14:03
Speaker 2: really good to hear that. It's not just you go
14:07
Speaker 2: around and everybody says everything's one hundred percent wonderful and
14:11
Speaker 2: perfect and great, and you take action with things that
14:16
Speaker 2: that you can change and things that you can improve.
14:19
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's really good to hear. I think
14:21
Speaker 2: the I'm not really patient facing my raw I try
14:26
Speaker 2: to be more with my engagement blog said, we're just
14:28
Speaker 2: sort of getting that off the ground. The probably the
14:31
Speaker 2: most public facing thing I contribute to is the anual Report,
14:35
Speaker 2: and we are we keep trying to make it so
14:38
Speaker 2: like an eleven year old could pick it up and
14:40
Speaker 2: get something out of it. Fortunately, there's a lot of
14:44
Speaker 2: tick box content that you need to add, you know,
14:47
Speaker 2: but we do try to make it so that you know,
14:49
Speaker 2: you could have a look for it and get something
14:50
Speaker 2: out of it. But that gives you the honest appraisal
14:52
Speaker 2: of where we are. And you know, we set the
14:55
Speaker 2: eyebar for where we're targeting, we don't always make it.
14:58
Speaker 2: And these are reasons why, Yeah, that's fantastic here. And
15:02
Speaker 2: in terms of engagement as well, how do you sort
15:07
Speaker 2: of engage with the community in terms of I then
15:12
Speaker 2: talks a little bit in terms of membership for young
15:14
Speaker 2: people and local people, but how do you sort of
15:17
Speaker 2: get out to the community. So that is in its
15:22
Speaker 2: bleedgling stages. So I think previous years our focus has
15:26
Speaker 2: been on recruiting more members, but in the in the
15:31
Speaker 2: Membership Committee of late, we've looked at, let's move the
15:34
Speaker 2: metrics away from pure recruitment and look at quality of engagement.
15:38
Speaker 2: So the metrics we use now is how many clicks
15:40
Speaker 2: does our newsletter get. So at the moment we're about
15:44
Speaker 2: thirty forty percent each each quarter and that's been arising
15:48
Speaker 2: from sixteen. So we're looking at like I did a
15:52
Speaker 2: lecture from Manage of England about how to approve the
15:55
Speaker 2: US letter and just things like you know, sending it
15:56
Speaker 2: on a Tuesday. Don't send it on a Friday with
15:58
Speaker 2: people thinking about the weekend. Have a call to action.
16:02
Speaker 2: Make it colorful, don't be vanilla or and a din
16:05
Speaker 2: or boring, you know, make it op Just things like that.
16:09
Speaker 2: And also we want we've got our elections coming up
16:12
Speaker 2: that open in November. We're judging ourselves by we want
16:15
Speaker 2: contested elections, so we want people to want to be
16:18
Speaker 2: a governor and sit in the election. That's one measure.
16:21
Speaker 2: We want to hire. Voter turn out. We want people
16:23
Speaker 2: to care about who the governor are so they stept
16:25
Speaker 2: out and vote. So these are all like quality of
16:28
Speaker 2: engagement measures and also like how many people turn up
16:31
Speaker 2: to the events we run. So for instance, the Breaks
16:34
Speaker 2: by Life had forty people sign up. That was a
16:37
Speaker 2: very very good grade. We had our AGM we had
16:41
Speaker 2: about fifty people turn up, which again was very very
16:44
Speaker 2: good for us. So now we're about getting connected. So
16:48
Speaker 2: when we were looking at previous strategies from twenty eleven,
16:51
Speaker 2: we had quite a good connection with the Bloomsbury Charity,
16:55
Speaker 2: corn Fields, the Brunswick Center all like the local main area.
17:00
Speaker 2: We had good connections, but those sort of went away.
17:04
Speaker 2: So we're looking to get back into schools to talk
17:06
Speaker 2: about the want to be at a governor looking to
17:09
Speaker 2: talk to talk to patients where we can maybe after
17:13
Speaker 2: leaf foots in the dischild's letters, we're looking at all,
17:15
Speaker 2: we're starting from afresh. So yeah, fantastic. Is it sort
17:20
Speaker 2: of the case of you know, if you send somebody
17:24
Speaker 2: a letter, like you said, if you send somebody a
17:27
Speaker 2: letter on a Friday afternoon, they're not going to read
17:29
Speaker 2: it or a newsletter or whatever, but if you were
17:31
Speaker 2: to ask them face to face, let's say, yes, absolutely.
17:35
Speaker 2: Is it sort of that kind of dynamic. So I
17:39
Speaker 2: think the perfect example was we did our last recruitment
17:42
Speaker 2: event in autumn in the lagoon, like the restaurant O Gosh,
17:47
Speaker 2: and we gave out twenty QR codes. Nobody joined, and
17:53
Speaker 2: I think that's it was kind of made clear. Yes,
17:55
Speaker 2: So it's probably because they're in hospital, they don't care,
17:57
Speaker 2: and plus additionally they're hungry. Yeah, yeah, there's there's more
18:02
Speaker 2: things to about. The two in combination. They're just just
18:06
Speaker 2: don't want to talk to me about membership, you know,
18:08
Speaker 2: they're just there's more important things on that at that time.
18:11
Speaker 2: So it's about meeting people where there's less pressure in
18:13
Speaker 2: the community. Yeah, and then making them aware that they
18:17
Speaker 2: can give their feedback or give how they feel, how
18:20
Speaker 2: what their experiences was to the governor and that that
18:22
Speaker 2: will go straight to the hospital. If they give their feedback,
18:26
Speaker 2: it will get listened to, it will get discussed fantastic
18:30
Speaker 2: and that kind of brings me on to my next
18:32
Speaker 2: point really in terms of you know, how to members
18:36
Speaker 2: influence sort of hospital decisions, sort of the and and
18:41
Speaker 2: policies I guess through through feedback. How how does that
18:46
Speaker 2: sort of work? So each we've of all our patients
18:50
Speaker 2: in England and Wales, we've divided them into three tiers essentially,
18:54
Speaker 2: so there's the London their home counties, and then the
18:58
Speaker 2: rest of England and Whales, and each has a governor's
19:02
Speaker 2: proportion to where our patients come from. So we get
19:05
Speaker 2: a few patients from England and Wales. So we have
19:07
Speaker 2: one patient governor, one public governor, one parent care and
19:10
Speaker 2: governor or that rest of England and Wales, and then
19:14
Speaker 2: we have two of each for counties, and then we
19:16
Speaker 2: have three of each for London. So in total where
19:19
Speaker 2: we have five staff governors and then we have five
19:21
Speaker 2: appointed so in total we have twenty seven governors. Okay,
19:26
Speaker 2: now do you think of them as like the tip
19:27
Speaker 2: of the pyramid. They are the representatives of all of
19:30
Speaker 2: that match. So, for instance, our member of public governor
19:34
Speaker 2: feel was very daunted by the fact that she represents
19:36
Speaker 2: the interests of three thousand members. Yeah, that's a lot
19:40
Speaker 2: and you think about it. But like I said, that
19:43
Speaker 2: communication isn't happening. So ideally we'd be getting even just
19:48
Speaker 2: two or three emails a month would be fantastic, Like,
19:50
Speaker 2: you know, this is how God she's doing. Thank you,
19:53
Speaker 2: this was my experience, or just some sort of information
19:56
Speaker 2: would be would be good and that will show that
19:58
Speaker 2: it's working. Now. To do that, they would email foundation
20:02
Speaker 2: at GOSHA any just the UK, and then I would
20:05
Speaker 2: direct it to their governor and then their governor would
20:08
Speaker 2: take that information to the Council of Governor's meeting where
20:11
Speaker 2: they would talk within the trust board. Yeah, that's how
20:15
Speaker 2: it is. So I assume that would get transmitted directly
20:18
Speaker 2: to the art. That's brilliant. So there's a there's a
20:21
Speaker 2: direct line of communication there. Yeah, there's a great mechanism
20:24
Speaker 2: that just just aren't being used right theirs. I get
20:28
Speaker 2: all people asking to leave the shift a bridge in
20:32
Speaker 2: the aim in the future is to effectively make that
20:38
Speaker 2: as streamlined as possible the advertiser to broadcom to. I
20:43
Speaker 2: think I think the offer of when people join as
20:45
Speaker 2: a member, they get like a generic letter, I think
20:49
Speaker 2: we could do a lot better. I think we could
20:50
Speaker 2: say these are your governors, these are their biographies if
20:53
Speaker 2: you are to talk to them in the email. Really
20:55
Speaker 2: people making it a lot all worthwhile and a lot
20:58
Speaker 2: of human fantastic And in terms of when people sign up,
21:06
Speaker 2: what kind of benefits do they get? I know we've
21:11
Speaker 2: mentioned a little bit about the tears system, but in
21:15
Speaker 2: terms of with JOP were to sign up today, what
21:18
Speaker 2: would you be receiving. So we don't want to be
21:21
Speaker 2: too intrusive. So I think it's you get out of
21:23
Speaker 2: it what you get what you put in. So, like
21:26
Speaker 2: I said, the bare minimum, you get a news letter,
21:28
Speaker 2: get involved, which is we tried to make that light artered,
21:31
Speaker 2: not wars of texts. You know, we give you links
21:34
Speaker 2: if you think, well I like what I'll read more
21:35
Speaker 2: about that story, you can read that. But if you
21:38
Speaker 2: talk to the governors their experiences, is they really love it.
21:43
Speaker 2: So some of them have helped sit on stakeholder panels
21:46
Speaker 2: for the chief Finance Officer and the Chief operating officer,
21:49
Speaker 2: So you get kind of effectively sit on a stakeholder
21:53
Speaker 2: panel that influences the decision where they got to a
21:55
Speaker 2: point the chief operator, the governors appoint the chair and
21:59
Speaker 2: then non executive directors. They get to observe the assurance
22:02
Speaker 2: committees which are like the audit committee, the Finance and
22:06
Speaker 2: for US committee. You get to see some amazing non
22:09
Speaker 2: executive directors. We have some great non executive directors that
22:12
Speaker 2: you get to see them in action. I think even
22:15
Speaker 2: just from like a CV experience or just just exposing
22:18
Speaker 2: yourself to a boardroom environment with some really flyers. This
22:21
Speaker 2: is a good experience, but it is the membership offer
22:26
Speaker 2: we do need to work on. So I think we
22:29
Speaker 2: were we were thinking about the lectures, but I think
22:31
Speaker 2: we need to review revisit that. But I think in
22:34
Speaker 2: time we are. We are considering a lot of It's
22:36
Speaker 2: like you know, if you if you sign up as
22:38
Speaker 2: a member, you might be able to do a tour
22:40
Speaker 2: of the laboratories or no one come and see the
22:44
Speaker 2: beehive on the on the on the hospital roof. Yeah,
22:48
Speaker 2: we're looking at the opportunities that are feasible that we
22:50
Speaker 2: can offer you are can make it more enticing and
22:53
Speaker 2: just a welcome letter and news letter, because because I
22:57
Speaker 2: can understand that that is a little bit if it's vanilla,
23:00
Speaker 2: we're trying to avoid that is pure for it. Absolutely, yes,
23:03
Speaker 2: we are one percent. It's yeah, yeah, yeah. And I
23:08
Speaker 2: gave the point as well that especially if it's an
23:11
Speaker 2: email or it's it's a letter or whatever, people can
23:14
Speaker 2: sort of look at it and go, well, I'll I'll
23:17
Speaker 2: deal with that later, and then later never comes and
23:19
Speaker 2: then you know, instend, it just rolls on and rolls
23:22
Speaker 2: out and rolls up. Whereas if it's I guess, it
23:25
Speaker 2: comes back to marketing, I guess, and in terms of
23:28
Speaker 2: being Eige catching, and you know, Danke et cetera, et cetera,
23:33
Speaker 2: we've got some good opportunities coming up. So the GOCH
23:35
Speaker 2: is refreshing our strategy the above and beyond. It's coming
23:39
Speaker 2: to the end. So we've got make shift for that,
23:40
Speaker 2: we've got the new membership strategy, and it also refreshing
23:43
Speaker 2: our values. So when we lost did that in twenty eleven,
23:47
Speaker 2: we we involved all our members and that was really
23:50
Speaker 2: really good. So it's about what are the values that
23:53
Speaker 2: you want to see? Gotcha embody? Yeah? Absolutely? And then
23:57
Speaker 2: did we continue along that line in terms of the future,
24:03
Speaker 2: you sort of touched a little bit on some things
24:05
Speaker 2: that you'll be doing where and obviously the main thing
24:09
Speaker 2: would be to have more members, more people, more people engaged,
24:12
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. But specifically, where would you like
24:17
Speaker 2: to see because I know you talked a little bit
24:20
Speaker 2: about a lot of things that you're doing, are burying,
24:23
Speaker 2: are in very early stages. Where would you like to
24:28
Speaker 2: see that sort of community engagement go in the future.
24:37
Speaker 2: So we also have the membership committed. We look at
24:40
Speaker 2: the demographic support of our membership, so we would like
24:44
Speaker 2: the demographics to be more reflective of the national network.
24:49
Speaker 2: So we have quite low on male members, we have
24:52
Speaker 2: quite low on BAME members, and we also actually have
24:58
Speaker 2: more seventy plus members than we do ten to seventeen, right,
25:03
Speaker 2: So I'd like to address that. I would like to
25:05
Speaker 2: have more children as members to young people, sorry, as
25:08
Speaker 2: young as members, and I'd like to have them on
25:10
Speaker 2: a pipeline to become governors. By that, I mean i'd
25:14
Speaker 2: like to have them engaged as members attend our events,
25:17
Speaker 2: provide the feedback about this service, and just keep in touch,
25:20
Speaker 2: just you know, once a year, once every two years,
25:22
Speaker 2: and then when their sea comes up for election, they're
25:24
Speaker 2: ready and they're ready to stand for election, become a
25:26
Speaker 2: governor and give back to the hospital. It's fantastic. Yeah,
25:32
Speaker 2: I think it's it's always looking to the future, isn't it.
25:34
Speaker 2: And when you look to the future, look to the
25:37
Speaker 2: younger generation. I guess I'd also like to see that
25:43
Speaker 2: that communication be used, you know, and then a message
25:47
Speaker 2: from remember, dear gosh, I would like to tell my governor,
25:51
Speaker 2: this was my experience, and then we could do it
25:55
Speaker 2: as you said we did, and we wouldn't just sort
25:57
Speaker 2: of let that information go into the ether able to
26:00
Speaker 2: say thank you for your question. We took this to
26:02
Speaker 2: the council. This with the outcome, get that feedback loop,
26:06
Speaker 2: and even if that happened just three times a quarter,
26:10
Speaker 2: for ten twelve times a year, that would be borded
26:12
Speaker 2: with them in now. And I over threw it about
26:15
Speaker 2: and that that kind of comes back to being valued
26:18
Speaker 2: as well, isn't it. Because I think we've all sent
26:19
Speaker 2: an email and it's just either ended up in junk
26:22
Speaker 2: or someone's looked at it and gone, yeah, I'm not
26:24
Speaker 2: going to answer that, and I think, to be honest,
26:28
Speaker 2: it's probably I've probably done it the other way as well.
26:30
Speaker 2: It just got yeah, I'm not going to deal with that,
26:32
Speaker 2: and it's something I told what So I think it's
26:38
Speaker 2: it's about that feeling valued and going right. If I
26:40
Speaker 2: email this person, I know that, you know, my outcome
26:45
Speaker 2: might not be exactly what I wanted to be, but
26:48
Speaker 2: I know that that person's going to listen. I know
26:50
Speaker 2: they're going to take it on board and they're gonna
26:52
Speaker 2: they're going to do something about it. And maybe maybe
26:55
Speaker 2: it might be too dreamy, but for Mems to know
26:57
Speaker 2: who their governor representatives are, yes, you have such a
27:02
Speaker 2: diverse group of governance and they are so enthused. And
27:05
Speaker 2: I think last year is the strategy for the election
27:08
Speaker 2: was to have new members who were engaged to make
27:11
Speaker 2: newly engaged governance. Now I think that's worked really well.
27:15
Speaker 2: So hopefully see some some of the members be recruited
27:19
Speaker 2: at race Bekids. Hopefull you can see them as governors
27:21
Speaker 2: in the next two three years. Fantastic. That's brilliant and
27:26
Speaker 2: and you you you kind of you pop up, as
27:28
Speaker 2: you said, all over the place doing doing different sort
27:33
Speaker 2: of try to get people and recruited. In terms of
27:37
Speaker 2: where people can find you, We've said about the Race
27:40
Speaker 2: for Life where I met you, and he said a
27:44
Speaker 2: little bit in and around the hospital. And have you
27:47
Speaker 2: got any places that you will be coming up or
27:49
Speaker 2: van to have stores and stands where people can find
27:52
Speaker 2: you in the next few months or so. Fortunately in
27:55
Speaker 2: the charity of wound down their events for the rest
27:57
Speaker 2: of the year and they don't have the Santa Dash anymore.
27:59
Speaker 2: But we are going to be looking around. We're going
28:02
Speaker 2: to try the network. But if you have an interview
28:05
Speaker 2: your listeners would like me to comment present, I'm happy
28:07
Speaker 2: to try and get stand get a governess to talk
28:10
Speaker 2: about their experiences of gosh. Yeah, so do do let
28:13
Speaker 2: me know. Fantastic and how do people get into contact
28:17
Speaker 2: with you to do that foundation and gosh dot any
28:20
Speaker 2: yesterday brilliant, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your
28:25
Speaker 2: time today. I know you've been incredibly busy and I
28:29
Speaker 2: really really appreciate it you coming on and also appreciate
28:34
Speaker 2: just the level of work that you do. And as
28:36
Speaker 2: people know, GOS has a very special place in my heart.
28:40
Speaker 2: And just from me and from everybody else who the
28:43
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of people that have been through through
28:46
Speaker 2: Gosh in some form or another, I just wanted to
28:49
Speaker 2: say thank you so much. No, thank you for having
28:52
Speaker 2: me on, thank.
28:55
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