Blackpool hospital chief exec puts focus on staff and spending

Hospital services in Blackpool depend on people from 65 different nationalities, and the town’s NHS boss has told of staff fearing going to work during recent violence.

During August there were disturbances across the country, including in Blackpool, as protests in relation to immigration led to outbreaks of disorder.

Maggie Oldham, chief executive of Blackpool Teaching Hospitals, said staff were put on standby in case incidents led to multiple casualties but thankfully that did not happen and services were not disrupted.

But she told a meeting of the hospital board many staff were hurt by the atmosphere in the country at that time, with some fearing to come into work.

She said: “It really hurt our staff. We have 65 nationalities represented in this organisation. A few weeks ago I opened up one of our wellness rooms and dedicated that to our first Windrush nurse.

“The very first international colleagues joined us in 1948. There was a change to the national constitution in order to bring national colleagues to England to be able to support the National Health Service.

“International colleagues are part of our very DNA. So the very fact that particularly our Muslim colleagues found it difficult to come to work during that period due to the large amounts of violence and intimidation that they saw, certainly wasn’t lost on me.

“We put as much support around our colleagues as we possibly could during that period. It really fast-tracked some of the gaps we have got. How do we support our colleagues with 18 per cent of staff coming from BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) backgrounds?

“Do we do enough? A staff survey suggests we still have more to do. But having the opportunity to meet and be with people absolutely brought to life some of those challenges for me.

“I have the privilege of working alongside our longest-serving chaplain, who is also our Imam and I had the opportunity to go and visit the mosque. I have met some of our colleagues I would never have met possibly for months and years during that period, and I learnt an awful lot about the diversity that is so rich in this organisation.

“I will continue to develop those links further.”

Ms Oldham also told the board she had joined other hospital chief executives from around the country at a meeting in London with Health Secretary Wes Streeting.

She said bosses were warned of the need for the NHS to balance the books and provide value for money, but patient and staff safety remained the priority.

Mr Streeting also put a priority on providing more hot meals for patients and staff at night time, which Ms Oldham agreed was something “our staff would tell us that is important to them as well.”

She told the board: “What we shouldn’t be expecting is to see any financial let-up. We are going to the end of this financial year seeing the challenges we have got nationally play out across the public sector budgets.

“Which really gave us the opportunity to talk about what is expected of us. The first thing the Secretary of State stressed was the most important thing was safety, and for all chief executives that has to be the number one priority.”

Ms Oldham warned this meant performing well in all NHS indicators, and said help should be sought from better performing trusts.

She added: “We cannot be too proud to go to the best in the pack and ask what are you doing and how are you doing it? And how can we fit that around our population needs.”

She said dealing with flu, Covid and Norovirus would be “at the centre of our planning for winter” while eradicating wasteful spending would ensure services offered value for money.