Vikki Garrick

IBD Nurse Specialist/ GI CNS Team Lead, Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow

We moved hospital 3 years ago and the effect on our workplace culture was tangible. We are no longer co-located so most communication is now done by email. This means we’ve lost the ‘human’ element to our team and this has been a challenge. Many of the team say that they feel isolated and undervalued.

I am hopeful that the Inspire Improvement programme will help us address this and transform our workplace from one of significant negativity to one of optimism and empowerment. We have a fantastic team who have many skills which, to my mind, are currently unharnessed and therefore underused. I am well placed within the team to lead on the rolling out of the programme and am lucky enough to have a nursing team who are incredibly supportive.

I am hoping we will emerge from this process as a more cohesive, productive and empowered team with a clear vision and motivation to achieve this. Identifying and ‘taking control’ or our workplace culture will, I hope, also help our team feel more valued – for me this is vital if a healthy workplace culture is to exist. If the team can feel they make a difference and have the power to change things, the knock on effect can only be positive.

Patients being managed by a team who treat each other well and value everyone’s input will also feel the benefit of this. Care being delivered by nurses who are de-motivated and frustrated will not be optimal – I’m hoping this programme will prevent this and help my team appreciate how great they really are.