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Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 12 May

May 12, 2023

My Friday message this week is focused on you – our People.

People are our priority here at SWB and as you know, are a key part of our new five-year strategy, centred around our three Ps: our Patients, our People, and our Population. Earlier this year we launched our People Plan which sets out how we will deliver on the People objective – to cultivate and sustain happy, productive and engaged staff. Our new People Plan supports that strategic objective by focussing on improving staff satisfaction and experience in order to support a positive organisational culture to thrive.

We want you to feel part of the SWB family, from recruitment to retirement and our new values are an important part of this. They should reflect what is best about us and what matters most to us, the people we care for and the wider community we serve.

As a reminder – our values are:

  • Ambition: We’re ambitious for our communities. We want to make a difference, improving life chances and health outcomes. We’re ambitious for our people. We want them to be happy here, to feel supported to achieve their own goals and ambitions. We’re ambitious for our Trust, open to new ideas, developing new technology and treatments to provide the best possible care. Working together, and alongside our partners to continually improve.
  • Respect: We are a place of inclusivity. We value, celebrate and draw strength from the diversity among us, and in our communities. This is what makes us special. Our people and our patients feel listened to. Everyone’s voice counts. We’re a place where people feel safe to speak up knowing their voices will be heard. Respect and dignity for everyone.
  • Compassion: We’re a welcoming, friendly Trust. We have care, kindness and compassion at our heart. For us, everyone matters. We’re a place where compassion is not just for our patients and their families, but a right for all of us. Our people are amazing, meeting challenges head on. They put patients first, day after day, to deliver the best care they can.

We don’t want the values to just be written down in a strategy document or on Connect, we want them to be right at the heart of everything we do. They are underpinned by behaviours which help us all to live the values each day, from the newest person in the organisation, right up to the Board.

Over the coming months we will be looking at how we can bring the values to life across the whole organisation, so if you have any ideas on how we could do this, or how you are already doing it in your area, please do let me know. As a start, we will be using them in recruitment and in appraisal. We must use them to guide our approach to speaking up. There will be many others and I really do want to hear your views.

Our values are also a key part of our annual Star Awards, which I am delighted to announce have launched today. It’s one of my favourite things about being chief executive of this organisation – I take great pride in reading all the nominations and seeing the amazing range of stories of teams and individuals who have done exemplary work, work which should be focused on our three objectives and which lives our values.

This year, we have made it easier than ever for you to nominate your colleagues and teams that have gone above and beyond to make a difference to our Patients, our People, and our Population. You don’t have to be logged into the network to make your nomination and you can use any device – simply click here to complete the form.

You can find out more about the categories here.

We have lots to be proud of at SWB, so please do have a think about those people around you who showcase ambition, respect and compassion and consistently make a difference to our Patients, our People and our Population and put them forward for a Star Award.