Jan Sobieraj

By Jan Sobieraj JanSobieraj

In my first monthly column for The Lincolnite I wanted to talk about recruitment and trying to attract people to work in our hospitals.

Before I joined the team at ULHT I was chief executive of the NHS Leadership Academy, the organisation that supports the leadership and development needs of the all NHS trusts, so investing in and retaining staff is something that is very close to my heart.

It’s important that we attract new people to the organisation to give them the opportunities to grow and shine, as well as keep the wonderful staff we have already.

Despite our pressures we do not have a major retention problem and at our recent long service awards I met many staff who have worked for us for over 30 years.

As I’m sure many businesses and organisations in Lincolnshire will attest to, it can be a challenge recruiting staff and the NHS is no exception.

I think Lincolnshire is an amazing county for people to both work and live in. As an organisation we are always looking to expand our teams and improve our services and working at ULHT offers many benefits and opportunities for our workforce.

Amongst other great services we have a leading heart centre at Lincoln, one of the best neck of femur services in the country at Pilgrim, and an innovative hospice in a hospital at Grantham – the first of its kind in the country.

Like many trusts across the country we are facing a staffing crisis and have a number of consultant and nurse vacancies that we are trying to recruit to. We are particularly struggling to recruit paediatricians, paediatric and neonatal nurses and radiologists and emergency medicine doctors.

Another challenge we face is that we are fishing in the same pool as other trusts to recruit staff. However we haven’t rested on our laurels and we are taking a number of different steps to attract people to our organisation.

We have been working hard to recruit emergency medicine doctors in the UK and abroad and are now offering a new innovative approach to encourage new doctors to work in our emergency departments.

We have started advertising a series of new posts for doctors who wish to take their career to the next level. Whilst working in an A&E, these doctors will be given time off each week to study part-time and the course fees will be paid for by the trust.

This is a new initiative and we are one of the few trusts in the country to offer such an attractive package.

We also welcomed 100 newly qualified nurses to our hospitals across Lincolnshire earlier this month, who have just graduated from the University of Lincoln. These nurses will help to significantly boost nursing numbers across our hospitals.

Before they begin work in their new roles, the nurses will undertake a comprehensive induction to ensure they continue to receive the necessary training and support.

Two nurses also join us from the Philippines this month and we expect another eight will arrive before Christmas. We hope more will follow next year.

We will also be heading to the Royal College Emergency Medicine, British Medical Journal, Royal College Nurses and Irish career fairs over the next few months, with partners from Lincolnshire, to attract more staff to work across the NHS and in our great county.

If you’re interested in joining our team, please visit the NHS Jobs website to see our vacancies or visit the jobs section on our ULHT website.

Jan Sobieraj is the new Chief Executive of United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust.

By Jan Sobieraj JanSobieraj

I feel very positive about the future of ULHT and what 2016 will bring, and that’s because of the fantastic staff I’ve already met across our hospitals who are determined to provide the best possible care to the people of Lincolnshire.

I’ve already identified so many positive things within our hospitals and I’m sure there are many more yet to discover.

I am now becoming more familiar with the challenges that the trust and local health system face and I am very much looking forward to working with staff at all levels to ensure we provide the quality of care our patients deserve and expect.

In 2016, I believe we need to focus on building on the good progress that we’ve made recently around improving hospital services and standards of care across all of our services.

I’m well aware that this next year will be tough though, as we’re not in good financial shape and we need to reduce our substantial deficit whilst maintaining or even improving our quality and safety.

This will mean working very closely with our clinicians and partners to make some big decisions around how best patients can be treated within our financial means.

A priority for the year will therefore be about developing a medium-term plan for our hospitals and the services within them, that ensures great local services until the work of the Lincolnshire Health and Care programme (LHAC) really takes shape.

I’d also like to prioritise our work on making sure we are a great employer, so that we can retain our talented staff, as well as continuing our endeavours to attract more new recruits. I know we’re a great place to work and develop skills and careers and we need to ensure that is very much public knowledge.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been working to get up to speed with an important piece of work called Beyond Good – a programme to improve our quality, performance and financial position. I know that in some areas we’re not in the best place and that, despite all the hard work going on, there are reasonable expectations of us from our patients and their families as well as the commissioners and regulators to improve.

We all need to focus on this as we enter the challenging winter period and into 2016.

My New Year’s Resolution

In terms of resolutions – I need to make sure that I don’t spend all my waking hours at work and leave some for my family. I also intend to continue supporting my charities which include Combat Stress, a service veterans mental health charity, where I am a trustee and which does great work.

Jan Sobieraj is the new chief executive of United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust. He joined the trust from the NHS Leadership Academy, where he was managing director.

Jan has over 24 years’ experience in the NHS of which 13 years have been as chief executives for various organisations including an acute hospital trust and a commissioner.

Jan Sobieraj is the new Chief Executive of United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust.