21/11/2008 by Patrick Keady.

While it seems obvious now, I’d never thought about equality and diversity like this before. Today I learned that equality and diversity affects all of us. Whether its because of gender, race, sexual orientation, bullying, home circumstances, nationality, disability, harassment, age, sickness absence etc.

Run by the Garnett Foundation, today’s session was all about exploring equality and diversity in relation to recruitment and selection. Using a range of interactive approaches, we practised and developed our interviewing skills. While professional actors played a number of diverse parts.

During lively interactive workshops, we explored staff retention and working cultures that foster inclusion and diversity. The training event provided a safe learning environment to highlight areas for improvement in our knowledge and understanding and also to share learning.
While I had heard a lot about the Garnett Foundation,  today’s training session met my expectations, and more.

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12/11/2008 by Patrick Keady.

NHS Live has done it again! They promised lots. And then they’ve delivered so much more. Their latest outing, NHS Innovation Live, took place today at the Queen Elizabeth II Center, London.

Designed as a platform for sharing and celebrating some of the many achievements in today’s NHS, the event was hosted by Kathy Sykes, Professor of Sciences and Society at Bristol University and a Trustee of NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts). Kathy has a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Not a stranger to the media, I like her balanced approach. Kathy is open to the people that she meets, while not loosing sight of the scientific rigour that she has been immersed in throughout her career.

Gill Hicks gave today’s keynote address. Gill lost both of her legs from below the knee on 7th July 2005. Gill told us about the hour or so that she was trapped in a London Underground carriage, her three cardiac arrests before she got to hospital, the make-shift stretcher used to get her there, the Paramedic who challenged discussions to pronounce Gill dead, the Consultant that told her ‘you will get better’, the nurse who got her to the hospital hairdresser just a week after the bombings, the cafeteria staff that chatted with her every morning, the physio who coached her back to her independence and the many other NHS staff that helped her through her recovery.

Interlaced with lots of humour about being Australian and some of the funnier experiences during her recovery, Gill held the mirror up to the 600 delegates at NHS Innovation Live. And what the delegates saw in the mirror, was a former NHS patient that was truly grateful for the services that the NHS provides. What they saw in the mirror was more than sufficient for many of the delegates that had travelled from near and far. And there was so much more to come.

They had many choices. Which two of the twelve breakout sessions would they attend. Did they want to learn how to release the innovator In themselves, or how social innovation can create a new model of health for men. Or maybe they wanted to know more about how Royal Bolton Hospital adopted LEAN Thinking. For the geeks, they could hear about generating and using patient stories to improve the NHS via Web 2.0 technology. Performance people could hear how an SHA is intelligently using information to the manage performance of its PCTs and Trusts. Other choices included how social and cultural background contributes to health beliefs and attitudes to mental distress, the excitement of setting up a social enterprise organization, how to nurture an idea and transform it into something really tangible and effective, exploring the role of charities and other third sector organisations in health innovation, using observation to find out what people do and how they carry out their work, improving understanding and the experience of patient and staff, and understanding mental illness from the perspective of service user.

Yet another excellent NHS Live event – well done to the NHS Live team. Why not sign up for their next event. Its free and they’re at www.nhslive.nhs.uk

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06/11/2008 by Patrick Keady.

We met today at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh - my last day as the Chair of the Europe’s largest group of Chartered Safety and Health Practitioners, the IOSH Healthcare Group. And next month, I become the first Chartered Safety and Health Practitoner from the NHS/independent healthcare, to join the IOSH Board of Trustees.

Members of the IOSH Healthcare Group work in the NHS/Public healthcare (63%), independent healthcare (9%), for ourselves (6%), consultancy/insurance (5%) and other (17%). Our 1,604 members account for 4.7% of the IOSH membership (33,500) and 0.0008% of healthcare employees in the UK and Ireland (2 million).

Many thanks to the Committee - we have achieved a lot since I became Chair of the Healthcare Group, 30 months ago (June 2006). Here were a few of the highlights:

953 people attended one of our 1-day conferences. These were held at Millennium Stadium, Cardiff (238 delegates), Rose Court, London (120), Wesley College, Bristol (116), St James Hospital, Dublin (100), IOSH Leicester (91), University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust (86), Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (73), Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (60), POSK, London (37) and Central Birmingham (32).

Speakers came from the All Wales Manual Handling Group, Building Research Establishment, Chief Fire Officers Association, Department of Health (England), Healthcare Commission, HM Fire Service Inspectorate, HSA (Ireland), Health and Safety Executive, HSE Laboratory, Health Service Executive (Ireland), IOSH (The Grange), MRSA Reference Laboratory (Ireland), NHS Counter Fraud and Security Management Services, NHS Lothian, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, OHSAS (Scotland), Solicitors (Hammonds and Morgan Coles), Surgical Materials Testing Laboratory (Wales), Universities (Nottingham and Stirling) and the Welsh Assembly Government.
349 Healthcare Group members responded to the Healthcare Group questionnaire in July 2006. Members responded that they were satisfied with Group and their feedback directly shaped the Group’s 2007-2010 business plan.

140 local meetings were organised by members of the Healthcare Group. These meetings were organised by our 4 Sections (in Ireland, Northern Ireland, North West England, Scotland) and 6 Affiliate Groups in London, South East, South West, Wales, West Midlands, Yorkshire.

5% versus 34%. In 2007, the number of Strategic Health Authorities, NHS Trusts and PCTs in England reduced from 527 to 348, accompanied with compulsory and voluntary redundancies. Mergers of NHS organisations took place in Scotland and Wales too. While the number of organizations was reduced by 34%, the number of Healthcare Group  members declined from1689 to 1604 (5% reduction).

Other highlights included SHPs being featured in the NHS60 celebrations at Wembley and on YouTube (July 2008). I Chaired HSJs first NHS Risk Management Conference in Birmingham. HSE launched healthcare waste guidelines at our Event in December 2006. We work with key strategic partners including NHS Employers, Department of Health (England), Welsh Assembly Government, HSE, NHS Security Management Service, National Performance Advisory Group, British Occupational Hygiene Society, NHS Core Learning Unit.

We were ranked the best of IOSHs 16 sector-specific Groups in the IOSH Corporate Survey (April 2007). The 3752 responses were verified by www.parn.org.uk  We ranked excellent at the triannual internal IOSH review undertaken by the Groups Management Committee (September 2008)

This brings to an end my 16 years working at national level in NHS occupational safety and health. Initially as a Board Member of the National Association of Safety and Risk Practitioners (1992-1999), Editor of Risk Reduction in Healthcare (1995-1998), Committee Member of the IOSH Healthcare Group (1999-2006) and Chair (2006-2008)

I have thoroughly enjoyed my 30 months as Chair of the IOSH Healthcare Group. During this time, I took the opportunity to leave the NHS after 16 years service, to be an independent consultant in governance, risk and safety. I am thankful to the many people that I worked with. And in particular, Darren MacDonald (Vice-Chair), Chris Beadle (Events), Douglas Blair (Web and Communications), Margo Campbell (Improvement), Emma Kirton (Partnership), Paul Roberts and Jan Worthy.

Darren McDonald and the new Healthcare Committee will achieve much more in the  months to come. They have my full support in taking the IOSH Healthcare Group forward.

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