On Tuesday Chief Operating Officer, Mairead McCormick, went back to the floor with the Paediatrics team. Mairead attended a simulation with the medical and nursing team, this had a communication theme and showed the doctors and nurses dealing with a difficult conversation. Mairead also joined Dr Filkin on his ward round and got to see a variety of paediatric patients. Claire Murphy, Paediatric Matron said, “we really enjoyed having Mairead with us, the team felt that she really listened and showed lots of interest in the department and supporting the team”.
Mairead really enjoyed the morning and found the simulation session very powerful and Mairead was really able to reflect back on her nursing days where these simulations didn’t exist and it’s great to see how training has progressed. Mairead said, “I thought it was a really powerful training session and a fantastic opportunity to practice extremely difficult conversations in a safe environment. They are led by paediatric consultants and the simulation team from the education centre and ironically, I then went on to meet a parent and child who would have experienced this difficult message recently. This was on the ward round led by Jon Filkin, paediatric consultant, and Marveen, registrar, with Sinead as the junior sister.
“There was a tremendous sense of team work and I noticed a huge capacity to make children and parents feel at ease. This of course was aided by the play therapists who certainly got the best welcome from the kids who even managed to produce a smile despite their illness, again really representative of great rapport. I managed to have a conversation with Jamie, our practice development nurse, whom I remember well from my days in ED. We reminisced that we have both been in the NHS for 33 years and it was just great to hear how much she still loves her job. I was keen to know how she managed to still look so young?
“I was struck by the volume of children present experiencing mental health problems and found it helpful to see that we are focusing on something that will make a difference as a system. This is primarily the input from children’s mental health teams for the future, but also the environment where these children receive their care. It was pretty hot on the ward so we even managed to resolve this by getting an air conditioning unit, aided by a very responsive estates and facilities team. Overall, this was a fantastic opportunity to see the great work of our teams and I enjoyed it immensely.”
