Encouraging words for our nurses

David Purdue, Chief Operating Officer at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals said: “I would like to thank Mr Smith for his very supportive comments about our staff and am glad that his recent stay at Bassetlaw was a positive one.

I hope that he is now recovering well at home after his surgery.”

I entirely agree with Mr Smith that the staff at our hospitals do a fantastic job and fully deserve the praise that they receive from people on a daily basis. We recently held our ‘Star of the Year Awards’ at Doncaster Racecourse and being at the event and hearing about the fantastic work that goes on within the Trust really brought home to everyone just how good a job our staff do for the public. To ensure that these standards continue to improve, we are recruiting more nurses so we that we have more permanent staff within the Trust and therefore need less agency nurses to come and work with us. While we work hard to make sure that we have the right staff on duty for every shift, sometimes nurses aren’t able to report for duty due to sickness or other reasons so this means that we do have to call on agency staff. We are doing all we can to reduce incidents where wards are short of staff and are also working to ensure that senior nurses who put together staff rotas have all of the resources they need to plan their wards and ensure that there are enough staff working, regardless of sickness and people being on holiday.

In terms of staff working through their breaks, there are national conditions for NHS staff around working hours and we are very aware of the importance of meeting these conditions, which includes encouraging staff to take their unpaid breaks.

We do of course have a duty to our patients though, so in cases where a patient could be at risk if a staff member was on their break, we would ask that person to be available for the patient and it a further testament to our staff that they of course do not hesitate to put a patient’s care above their meal breaks.

Parking at our hospitals is also something that we are all too well aware of as well. We know that there is limited space at our sites and that is why we started the free shuttle buses to our hospitals as well as a park and ride car park for all staff near Doncaster Racecourse. Staff who choose to park on site therefore do have to pay and that does apply to managers.

Lee Kilby

Communications Officer

AAA Screening Programme

Doncaster & Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust