Our vascular surgery consultant Neeraj Bhasin has been appointed to the post of Regional Clinical Director (CD) to create a single clinical service to deliver vascular services across West Yorkshire.

Following a review of the way in which vascular services will be provided across West Yorkshire, the single service will provide all emergency and elective vascular surgery out of two hubs at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, as well as emergency and high risk elective Interventional Radiology. Day case (minor to moderate surgery), diagnostics and outpatient clinics will remain at the local hospitals. There will also be a service at all hospitals to provide care and support to in-patients in other specialties.

Specialised services are not available in every local hospital because they have to be delivered by specialist teams of doctors, nurses and other health professionals who have the necessary skills and experience. Unlike most healthcare, which is planned and arranged locally, specialised services are planned nationally and regionally by NHS England. Specialised vascular care provided within an arterial centre falls within this remit.

As CD Neeraj will work alongside a Head of Nursing and General Manager to manage and develop the service. He will work in his role as CD two days a week across all five trusts and continue his vascular work with our Trust for the rest of his time.

We asked Neeraj to tell us more about

Why did you apply for the role?

I applied for this role as it’s an amazing and unique opportunity to create a single service across five trusts in West Yorkshire and strive to, most importantly, deliver great patient outcomes and experience with patients from across the whole region having equal access to high quality care. Also, it’s like a blank sheet of paper where we can do things very differently to create something sustainable which can evolve with time and also, hopefully, deliver career development and variety to the workforce, and improve recruitment, training and research. Finally, having been involved with this work since 2014 I feel a real personal responsibility to see it through to what I hope will be a positive conclusion.

What do you think the challenges are going to be?

With any change, people are understandably hesitant, both the patients and staff. The challenge will be expressing why it’s necessary from a service specification and workforce point of view, but also the real benefits it can bring for those two groups. Staff are comfortable where they work, how things are done, and are wedded to their organisations. It will be a challenge to try and get over some of that resistance to change, and help people see how being part of a regional team, and really engaging with that, can be exciting, rewarding, and better in some aspects.

What are you most looking forward to in the new role?

I’m so excited to creating a brand new entity called the West Yorkshire Vascular Service (WYVaS) to provide vascular services across the region. I don’t want this to be the current units and pathways clipped together, but something new and distinct that staff are proud to be a part of and truly, effectively provides an excellent level of care to our 2.4 million population.

From a personal perspective the new role is, primarily, such an incredible opportunity to contribute to the delivery of care to patients across the region, but it will also help me develop new skills and grow. However, I am hugely sad to be leaving the Associate Medical Director role at CHFT to take this on. I am so grateful that I can genuinely say that it has been brilliant working with the fantastic people and teams during my time in this role. People have been so supportive, caring, friendly, and work so very hard, but most importantly, with a positive approach and I want to say a huge ‘thank you’ to them. I’m glad I’ll still stay rooted in CHFT with my clinical work and remain part of the wider team.

____________________________________________________________________

The posts of Head of Nursing and General Manager are currently out to recruitment with a closing date of Monday 27 January. You can find out more about them at:

General Manager - https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/xi/vacancy/e030be7130f1abe7b30f68e619a32d49/?vac_ref=915386183

Head of Nursing - https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/xi/vacancy/477c84374168bdddd833001f05f49177/?vac_ref=915386298