A new regime of weekly walkabouts aimed at sharing best practice across CHFT began yesterday (Wed 13 January) at CRH, HRI and in community teams.

Director of Nursing Julie Dawes kicked-off the first HRI walkabout - which involve matrons, clinical managers from Community, safeguarding and infection control.  

It gave us the opportunity to talk to patients about their care which have given us vaulable feedback. It was also an opportunity to check on our documentation processes to see if we can make improvements, and look at our infection control practice and medicines management and talk about ways colleagues can be supported in all these areas.

New Associate Director of Nursing for Surgery and Anaesthetics, Jo Middleton, led the sessions in theatres at CRH and in Community, Interim Associate Director of Nursing, Diane Catlow, met with the community matrons and clinical managers to discuss plans for future walkarounds.

The walkabouts complement our Go See Friday programme (where board members and other senior leadership members visit different areas of our Trust) with a clinical focus on areas such as infection control, medicine management, documentation and MCA/DoLS, to name a few.

Working in twos and threes, our ‘walkabouters’ will aim to visit areas that they’d not normally work in to view them with a fresh pair of eyes. They will also talk to colleagues and patients to get their views on working here or our services.

Matron Chris Bentley and Lead Infection Prevention and Control Nurse Jean Robinson accompanied Julie at HRI. Chris told us: "It was really useful pairing up with Julie and Jean to have the time to talk to colleagues and patients about their experiences of our Trust."