"I felt proud" - Nihal on our teams in Rochdale he visited

It was a great pleasure to visit Birch Hill Hospital and meet staff in our teams based there. I was accompanied by Caroline McCann, associate director and Dr Ema Etuk clinical director and Deborah Sudbury, head of quality - after a brief catch up we visited with the new enclosed outdoor court at the back of the home treatment and access teams. This is ostensibly for our staff and to support their welfare.

I met Lynn Burton from our home treatement team and Gill Fletcher from our and access team and we spoke with staff there and took on board their perspectives before heading over to the John Elliot Unit - I remember this fondly from my days here in 2002 and even found identified the room I worked in! Memory lane is a happy place!

It was so positive to see our early internvention team, its clear cohesion and the comradery. A good chat/banter was followed by the journey to Moorside Ward where there has been a wonderful transformation. What an extensive refurbishment, so clearly patient focused with an area for therapy including a gym, chill out room, activity room and a kitchen. The width of the corridors were a significant change and it felt spacious, thank you to Simon Warburton and Mark Hepburn for explaining all the changes so clearly.  I took a bit of time asking questions and getting to know staff including Sarah Walsh and Sarah Fairbank. I also caught up briefly with advanced practitioner Jim McCormack who I've known since 2001! Thank you for spending that time with me when you were busy looking after some of our illest patients.

We then moved to Hollingworth Ward where I was shown some of the changes there too, again a big thank you to all the staff present. The journey took us then to our older age units and for the first time I went into our Watergrove Unit and then ended the tour on Beech Ward. We met Alison Hone from our MERIT Team, Sam Fruer and Marie Chadwick from our home intensive treatment service, Nicola Brett - Beech's ward manager, Sean O’Brien - outpatients service manager as well as single point of entry nurses Margaret Diggle and Pauline Rowan. We had a bit of time to explore their concerns and issues especially around the older age voice and the need to be heard in discussions and decision making.

It was a packed day and in combination with my visit to CAMHS services at Birchill Hospital, it demonstrated the breadth of our clinical offer, the deep commitment of staff to ensure that quality of services are maintained to a high standard and the estates offer to patients and staff are improving. We've moved away from dormitories now across the whole of our trust, what a fantastic achievement and a credit to all the hard work not just from staff and managers but also to our hard working estates and finance departments.

As the Executive Director supporting Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale, I felt proud to meet with the people I saw. Thank you for all your time and kindness during the visit.