Julius Ezeagu

Clinical Team Manager (DSN), East London NHS Foundation Trust

Creating Caring Cultures for CAMHS clinical in-patient team leaders

I’m really pleased that since the programme I have moved to a band 7 role in a new unit and I am project leading this. These changes in me I have transferred to other staff members. In this new unit we are attracting other members of staff to come and work with us. If we put a shift out, then it can be filled in seconds. Everyone wants to come and work here because we have a family culture. We don’t segregate, we don’t separate, we don’t discriminate. We accept anyone who comes through the door. During the day, you can see that everybody is bubbling – everybody is happy, feeling well and having fun. This then has an impact on the young people. They can forget that they are in a hospital and the reason they came into hospital. Getting to this point is because of the ward, the culture, the environment that has been created by the staff. This leads to a positive recovery and the majority of people who are discharged maintain contact to the ward. They may contact to say thank you, to say hello and to update us on their progress. These phone calls come every other day.

I am also engaging the staff in change more by identifying the gaps and what can improve. Having a rationale about why you want to improve it. Making an argument about an approach and talking about it. We talk about these all the time, in handovers, away days, during safety huddles. Trying things out to see what works and find the benefits, disadvantages, positives and negatives. This has an impact because care is everyone’s business no matter where they come from. This helped to transform the service. People, including me, used to say I don’t feel like coming into work. But now? I’m always eager.