Michael Folan is Associate Director of Therapies at CHFT where his wife, mum and sister-in-law also work and his children were born. In our latest Hello My Name Is.... he talks about  his work and family life - and a dream to retire to Ireland and feet up in front of a turf fire.

Hello My Name Is....Michael Folan and I re-joined CHFT at the beginning of September after a hiatus of approximately 16 years. I was born and bred in Huddersfield and still live in the town.

The majority of my immediate family also live in town and a number of them also work for CHFT (wife, mum and sister in law) and am also a very proud father to 2 children (boy and girl, Joe and Niamh who are 9 and 11 respectively and were born in CHFT maternity wards).

Outside of work I have moments of inspiration where I decide I’m going to run a marathon, keep fit, build a shed or a cloak room etc but generally they are fleeting moments!! More commonly I like to travel, eat nice food and drink nice drinks. Preferably combining them but if need be each in isolation also works for me!!

What is your position?  

Associate Director of Therapies

Summarise your career background

Started my career as a Physiotherapy Assistant as a naive 18 year old back in 1994. With the encouragement of a number of colleagues at the time, (some still here at CHFT – so thankyou again to them – you know who you are!!), I did my A-Levels again in the evening whilst working as an Assistant and got the grades I needed to go to University and study Physiotherapy.

Qualified in 2000 and started work as a Junior Physiotherapist at Calderdale in a rotational role, then moved back to Huddersfield into a MSK role in 2002. Then headed off a year later to do some locum work along with my then girlfriend and now wife (Claire Folan also works for CHFT as the lead for the Community Rehabilitation Team in Calderdale) with the plan once we’d earned enough money to head off on a round the world trip a year later. We did that and very much enjoyed that year travelling (getting married half way through in Sydney).

On return moved into an Extended Scope MSK Physio role in the Greater Manchester region that then led to local Clinical IT Leadership roles, that in turn led to National IT leadership roles in a what was a fairly rapid and unplanned career change. With the last 10 years or so being National Clinical Leadership roles across NHS England and NHS Digital.

Although not planned I don’t regret that path as it is given me a combination of experience, knowledge and insights that I suspect I wouldn’t have had if I had immediately returned to CHFT. Sliding doors moments and all that.

And now back to where I started my NHS career in a role where I can hopefully use that experience to give a strategic Allied Health Professional (AHPs) voice to CHFT and support delivery of the trust and wider NHS Long Term Plan and AHP strategies.
 

What is the highlight of your career so far?

There’s been a few since starting in the NHS in 1994. I’ve been very lucky over the last decade or so to have had the opportunity to present to the health select committees in the Palace of Westminster, been to Downing Street to meet the PM, Whitehall to meet a couple of Health Secretaries and presented in Europe and the US on various NHS initiatives on digital and data. However I’d probably go back to the day when I got my A-Level results back in 1997 and confirmed my place at University. That is ultimately the point that set me on my career and that would be the highlight. Again, thankful to those who supported me to that point and to the NHS since then in the opportunities it has presented me.

Sum up your role in three words

Leading and empowering

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

Professional Rugby League player

Who is your hero/heroine and why?
When I was a kid Ellery Hanley (see above). If I was to identify an inspirational person now I would probably say Shelagh Morris. Many people won’t know Shelagh but she was the Deputy Chief Allied Health Professional at NHS England and the Department of Health for many years. Although now retired, she was an OT by background and was just one of those of the people who absolutely devote everything they do unselfishly to helping others succeed and deliver on behalf of the NHS and its service users. Shelagh was everything we would wish as clinicians to have in a leader working at that level in the NHS.

When you are not at work, how do you relax?
Sleeping. Anyone who knows me well, knows I have a special talent for sleeping anywhere and at any time. In particular falling asleep on trains and missing my stop. Also, famously at school fell asleep during an assembly. Was sat on a bench on the edge of a stage and promptly fell off that stage. You can imagine the response from a hall full of kids.

What is your favourite place?

Lucky to have seen a fair chunk of the world but my favourite place would have to be the West Coast of Ireland. My family are originally from there and the retirement plan will involve a lovely cottage, with a turf fire and uninterrupted views overlooking the Atlantic.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

For someone who worked in the digital and data space (informatics) for a significant part of my career that I was never really interested in computers and technology per se. My journey in informatics started as something of a technophobe and cynic about the benefits it can deliver for health and care. Still not a technophile and have my reservations about aspects of our societal consumption of digital tools and software today (smartphone addiction, social media) and secondary impacts of this.

However ultimately, I do believe, and am a strong advocate for the role of data in supporting informed decision making at a personal and societal level. We need to work as a society to deliver the positive primary and secondary impacts of digitisation and data whilst equally focussing effort and resources on some of the ‘wicked’ problems related to the ‘digitisation’ of everyday lives and our individual and collective data that results from that digitisation.

Twitter/Facebook?

On a personal level I tend to try and avoid social media use but absolutely recognise, particularly with twitter, the value it can have in terms of knowledge, networks, access to broad insights etc. I’ll be working with the therapy and AHP teams on developing a consistent and shared team presence on twitter because much of the national AHP work uses twitter as its primary channel for engagement, sharing, networks etc.