Outpatients | Celebrating BWC Spirit

By Marc Crocker, Manager of Outpatients, Outpatients  

What was your experience of the pandemic? 

As the pandemic escalated, we had to make changes extremely quickly. This meant numerous meetings and team updates to ensure that we met the ever changing needs to protect patients, families and staff. As this was new to everyone involved, a whole team approach established a clear safe pathway. The team effort that ensured outpatients could operationally manage the change extended right across the service, from the nursing team to the operational managers and clinicians who put exhausting hours in to ensuring the right processes were established.  

The nursing team dedicated much time to providing the right environment in line with frequently changing procedures and managed patient concerns and expectations in an exceptionally professional manner. As this was a continuously changing learning curve for all of the nursing team, it was executed in a well organised manner.  

The nursing staff can take pride in the way they embraced the changes and kept their spirits up throughout the pandemic both professionally and personally. Due to lockdown and the need to ensure social distancing was adhered to, patient activity decreased.  

Allied services within the outpatient department such as phlebotomy also changed the way they worked. This created a more structured system, where a greater control over patient numbers was managed effectively.  

During the height of the pandemic, to ensure the trust was able to continue to deliver excellent care, a number of the outpatient nursing team were redeployed both within the children‘s hospital and to the women’s. The duration of this redeployment was unknown but ended up being, for some, over a year. The team did this with grace and compassion often working in areas very different to outpatients both from a role point of view and shift pattern.  

In order to ensure the safety of our oncology patients in Waterfall House, we closed the outpatient department to minimise the risk from excessive patient and family footfall. We also utilised Parsons House Fracture Clinic, as a designated area to continue to see patients that were potentially covid positive or covid contacts, thus ensuring patients that required treatment could still receive the care they needed.  

A video was made following the second lockdown to promote the safety of the department for patients and their families. This was to help support them in returning to face to face appointments and to allow them to see and hear what we as an outpatient team were doing to ensure their safety whilst visiting the department.  Throughout the pandemic we became a team proud of what we were achieving and comradery grew stronger.    

What was the hardest part? 

For the team, it was the rapid adjustment to the new ways of working. This meant identifying different management strategies for ensuring the safety and effectiveness of the clinics. This was seen both practically and psychologically, as a rapid decline in patient footfall meant a shift in thinking and the need for adjustment from how outpatient clinics had run prior to Covid. For staff that were redeployed, it was a time of uncertainty having to get to know new people. Experiencing new ways of working and becoming part of a new established team had its anxieties. Those who were redeployed, fed back that they were made to feel welcome and were fully recognised for their part in supporting the wider trust.   

How did you cope? 

The team was extremely resilient and worked in new ways to support one another, this was evident in the continued delivery of care that was provided throughout the pandemic.  

To ensure the staff kept their morale, team activities were created. One such event was a virtual walk from John O’groats to Lands End. This was completed by members of the outpatient team, who used pedometers to measure there walking activity each day. The combined team steps were added up each day and the route was completed over a period of a month during the summer. The distance covered was 1215 miles, known as the ‘End to End trail’.   

Full staff participation in clinic adjustments and new ways of working during the pandemic, meant that collectively the team were able to come alongside each other. As a team, recognising individual needs created an environment where being open and honest became part of a sharing activity each morning.  Humour also formed part of the changes, this helped to lift spirits during the challenging times.  

What did you learn? 

Other than quickly adjusting to new ways of working, we learnt that we all had a level of inner resilience that helped to ensure we focused on the role we had as part of outpatients and supporting other clinical areas across the trust. We became a dependable team, looking out for each other and recognising times that we needed to take time out.   

How do you think it changed the team? 

The team embraced a new level of team spirit, recognising the impact of the changes expected of us. A kindness board was set up, to recognise the commitment made by all members of the outpatient team. This allowed staff the opportunity to share their thoughts and feelings around the experiences they had shared.  

Beyond your team, who has inspired you during the pandemic? 

What was important for the team was to receive positive feedback from families. Many families recognised that changes had to be made, to ensure that their safety and that of the staff was paramount. The feedback provided inspired the team to identify the importance of their role within the pandemic.  

Knowing the pressures of all frontline workers across the country was a huge inspiration, acknowledging the whole effort being made across the NHS. This none more so than the public’s recognition and appreciation of the huge effort made by all staff in the NHS, by clapping every Thursday at 20.00. This  became a huge inspiration for the team and motivated them to go the extra mile.