Isobel McDowell
Assistant Team Manager, Western Trust, Northern Ireland
Hello my name is Isobel. I am a psychiatric nurse and assistant team manager of a Community Mental Health Team for Older People. We care for those over 65 years of age with a functional mental illness and those of all ages with a complex dementia.
It a multi-disciplinary team consisting of nurses, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and OTs. Within the team we have a memory service, a hospital liaison service, a nurse led service and a complex behaviour service.
I aspire to work collaboratively with the team to ensure high quality care is delivered to those we care for, by a team of staff who feel self-assured in their role and resilient in their resolve, in an environment conducive to their wellbeing.
The needs of service users within our specialist service can be complex. In order to deliver high quality care our staff must feel equipped with the skills, expertise and knowledge to carry out their role. Increasing demands on staff, in particular in recent months, can impact on care delivery.
I hope this programme will allow ideas and avenues to be explored, tested and delivered which will endeavour to balance the increasing demands on staff with the care they provide.
We are fortunate to have an excellent team of experienced professionals with varied skills and strengths. In these particularly challenging times I feel more than ever that investment in the workplace and in the team is required to facilitate staff to carry out their role to the best of their ability and to nurture an environment of innovation, learning and continued development.
My vision and passion is to engage, support, facilitate, motivate and nurture a caring culture within our team, so in turn, staff feel equipped, inspired, focused and renewed to deliver high quality care to both service users and their families and carers.
I feel we have all the ingredients to achieve this and with the knowledge, support and focus from the Inspire Improvement Programme I feel that I, the team and those we care for will all benefit from this.