In my travels around the hospital these past few weeks, I have been onto the wards, chatted with our BRILLIANT staff award winners and taken part in some really useful discussions about how we work and how we might work in the future. And in amongst the enthusiasm, the passion and the commitment that I’ve seen, there are a couple of themes that keep popping up – how we gear ourselves up to look after elderly patients and how we treat each other as people.

National Dementia Declaration

While helping out on one of our elderly care wards as part of nutrition awareness week, I talked with staff at length about elderly care and in particular, how we look after patients with dementia. This is such an important issue and one which I want us to thoroughly understand so that we are better responding to the needs of patients with dementia.

It’s a small first step, but this week, my senior team agreed to take forward the National Dementia Declaration – a commitment to making improvements – and we will be discussing the issue at Board later this month.

Values and behaviours

And how we treat each other was a recurring theme in a session I had with around 60 staff this week. Clinicians, staff side representatives, governors and non executives all met to look at all the feedback we’ve been gathering to develop a set of hospital values.

The result was an early cut of what our values and behaviours will be. This is a very important piece of work and when completed, will set out clearly what we all expect from each other.

These two themes have been in my mind all week – and right now, we’re in the grip of very cold weather and some parts had heavy snow this weekend. Going out in the freezing cold with icy roads and pavements isn’t as easy for older people who are infirm, have chest conditions or are just too scared to brave the elements. I’m going to act out the values we talked about, I’m going to treat others as I would want to be treated. I’m going to pop by my elderly neighbours, to say hello and check if they need anything.

Paul O’Connor, Chief Exec of Barnsley Hospital