Caroline's Blog

I was on the verge of tears on Friday. And in front of hundreds of our staff. It was at our annual staff awards ceremony and one of our special guests was Tom Buckley. Tom has been in the national news over the last few weeks and is an incredible young man. He was diagnosed with cancer of the eye when he was just 2 weeks old and 19 years later the cancer unfortunately came back. Last Tuesday 23-year old Tom finished a charity walk. Not just any walk but a gruelling 180 miles coast to coast walk - battling through blizzards, snow drifts, freezing temperatures and pouring rain for 18 days - and all to raise money for other Christie patients.

His story has touched and inspired everyone at the Christie and that's we why we wanted to honour Tom at the end of our staff awards ceremony. Because the one thing that motivates us to do our very best, to go that extra mile and to make that difference – is patients like Tom.

There was another inspiring person at our staff awards, who has also been a patient here - the highly-acclaimed BBC radio broadcaster Jenni Murray. It was a real honour to have Jenni at our ceremony to present the awards and she really moved us with her warm words about the Christie.

Tom and Jenni are both remarkable people and an important reminder about why we're all here, why we care, why everything we do matters so much. And I feel so proud about how much our staff do care. All of our staff are winners in my eyes, but it was uplifting to acknowledge those who have done something extra special this year.

It’s been a tremendous 12 months for our organisation. We still have a way to go in turning our dream of being a world leader into a reality – and there have been challenges - but 2008 has seen us take a momentous step forward.

Thank-you so much for your support over the year.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and here's to a happy and successful 2009 for all of us.

I love December.  As a mother it’s impossible not to, when you see the sheer joy and excitement of your children as it builds up to Christmas day.  I love all the festivities with family and friends, although I struggle to find time to send Christmas cards, and to be honest this year I’m thinking about giving a donation to charity instead.  But working in this job is a stark reminder that Christmas isn’t a celebratory time for everyone, and it’s very sobering to spend time on the wards and not forget some of the struggles that our patients are going through.

The most we can do is provide an environment where patients and their families know they are getting the best possible treatment and care.  That’s why I was delighted we were applauded at a national awards ceremony for always putting our patients first. We received ‘highly commended’ in the Acute Healthcare Organisation of the Year Award at the Health Service Journal awards ceremony on Monday - the first specialist organisation to ever receive ‘highly commended’ in this category.  We were praised for the huge improvements we have made across our organisation and the ambitious developments we are putting in place – but the praise for always putting our patients first is what it’s all about.

We always champion the patients as passionately as we can, but no voice is stronger than the patients themselves, as we witnessed last week when Melanie Angold eloquently spoke at our Taste of Honey charity evening about her treatment and care at The Christie.  The evening at the Royal Exchange was organised for our major donors and included watching the Taste of Honey stage play.  Sally Lindsay and the rest of the cast joined us after the show which topped off a really enjoyable evening.

Face-to-face contact with our patients will always overshadow any other form of communications – and rightly so – but we must never forget about the other ways we need to communicate. I was therefore pleased to find out that a national review of all 112 Foundation Trust websites has placed our website in the top ten.  We scored high in all areas, including our multi-media such as virtual tours, podcast and this blog.  Our website is an important communications tool and we currently receive around 456,000 page-views every month, so it’s great to know we’re providing a good service in this ever-growing area.

So going back to the season of goodwill, I think I’ve now decided that a charitable donation, Christmas e-greeting and hug for my friends will make up for any Christmas cards I don’t get round to posting.