Our Project Lead, Mez Jardiel, also joined the Nightingale team on secondment as a Bedside Learning Coordinator, capturing frontline insights on improving patient care, efficiency and staff wellbeing. Her top three learnings based on her experience:

Listen to the patients – I can’t think of a better way of ensuring that we are delivering patient-centered care than listening to our patients and co-designing ways on how we can make their stay more comfortable, especially since they are unable to be with their loved ones during the pandemic.

#OneTeam – If there was one thing that this pandemic has highlighted to us, teamwork does make the dream work! The NHS is filled with people that are passionate in delivering patient-centered care, and regardless of your named role, you have the ability to make a difference in patient care and wellbeing.

The power of staff autonomy – At the Nightingale, when we say we’re working on this together, we mean it in the literal sense. Senior leaders and their deputies are very supportive, approachable and available all the time to work with you. It’s great as in most cases, having senior leadership support and sign-off helps embed changes more effectively. The freedom from the usual NHS bureaucracy also meant that we were able to solve things quickly and focus more on patient care – Problem seen, solution developed and implemented. It was very rewarding to see changes implemented in such a short amount of time, especially as you can see its impact on patients and staff straightaway.