Membership Newsletter

Dear Members

I hope you have remained well since our last newsletter.   It is lovely at this time of year to feel spring in the air and the optimism that comes with winter being behind us.

I'm delighted to share with you information on what our governors and members have been out and about doing. There's also an update on activities from some of our publicly elected governors and upcoming governor elections – more of which below.

If you are a member and wish to get involved in any membership activities please get in contact with us via membership@cht.nhs.uk. 

With best wishes,

Helen

Chair

Hello, my name is Lorraine Wolfenden and I am a publicly elected Governor for Skircoat and Lower Calder, a position I have held for almost 3 years. I am also currently the lead governor for the Trust.  I have been involved in a number of activities and would like to tell you about some of them:

• Young Governors Help Us Rethink Diabetes Out Patient Letters:

We have 3 Associate Youth Governors, who are young people, some of who have been patients here at CHFT.  They help us to improve services for children and young people.  I have recently been working with one of the senior nurses and the associate youth governors to try and understand why young people aren’t accessing diabetes outpatient services.  The youth governors are helping us to co-produce and improve the letters that are sent out inviting young people with diabetes to attend. 

• Patient Experience visit to the Cardiology ward at Calderdale

I recently assisted with ‘Observe and Act’ on the cardiology ward at Calderdale Royal Hospital.  Observe and Act is where a small number of us who are not clinical staff visit various wards and departments to look at things like the environment - for instance is the ward clean? is the signage clear ad correct? is the ward free from clutter?  We also chat to patients where appropriate to find out how their experience as a patient has been. This is then fed back to the ward managers to enable them to act on anything that needs improving. Thankfully, nothing did on cardiology!  All the patients we spoke to reported excellent care and had no complaints

• Member engagement event at University of Huddersfield

At the end of last last year, a couple of us visited the University to talk to healthcare students in a number of disciplines about the work of the Trust and to encourage them to become members.  We had a stand in the new Daphne Steele building in Huddersfield as you can see in this photo and spoke to lots of healthcare students about being a member of the Trust.

The picture to the right shows Nour and Amy, physiotherapy students with our lead governor Lorraine at the University of Huddersfield Daphne Steele building at a member engagement event on 25 November 2025.

Patient Experience - Observe and Act:

I have participated in the CHFT run programme called Observe and Act which looks at the total experience of a service from the patient/carer perspective, learn from it, share good practice and, where necessary, act to make improvements.

It involves visits to various areas of the Trust including looking at signposting, cleanliness, food and the general environment. We also take the opportunity to talk to patients and their visitors to hear their experience. At the end of the visit we get to feedback our thoughts to whoever is directly involved in running the area and the findings are also fed back via the lead Nurse for Reconfiguration who normally leads the visit.

I have been involved for quite a few years and most recently visited the Coronary Care Unit at CRH, an in-patient ward at HRI and the Discharge Lounge at HRI. I find it a really useful exercise as a Governor as I believe we should effectively be looking at things from a patient’s perspective.

Membership Visit to Kirklees College:

As a result of my contacts at Kirklees College I was able to liaise with the Trust and college staff to arrange a talk recently to about 60 Health and Social Care students. I explained to them about the role of Members and Governors, and there were also presentations on career opportunities and an update on what was going on at the hospital. The morning session went down well with students and the staff are keen to repeat this event in the future.

Robert Markless, Governor, Huddersfield Central

Speaking to Patients about visiting times

I attended a lovely few hours at HRI a few months ago with one of the Trust’s senior nurses, Vicki Drummond and visited several wards speaking to patients their visitors and staff.

We asked how they found the new visiting hours and how it affected them personally. 99% of the feedback was positive and it is being well received from both staff / patients / visitors.

One comment from a staff sister was she opposed the extra visiting hours until it was found to be beneficial for both her patients and staff by:

• Easing ‘congestion’ of restricted visiting hours
• Supporting their loved ones
• Visitors helping staff to support their loved ones

Speaking from a personal viewpoint, I have found these broad visiting hours extremely beneficial.

It was a delight to be asked to take part with Patients attending the Orthopaedic Clinic over at CRH.

It was very busy on the morning that I attended, but it was really heart warming to have time to speak with patients in the waiting area, on how they felt about this particular department.

Long conversations took place, before patients were called for their appointment.

All were happy with the care they were receiving, the main bug bear was parking!

We all know that it is difficult, and hoping with the completion of the Multi Storey Car Park, this will be resolved.

Another point raised, was why Huddersfield patients had to travel over to CRH and visa versa, but we did our best to answer these points.

I always like engaging with the public, because we communicate on the same wave length as users of the service.

On a different note, I always enjoy helping out with the CHFT Charity, again it involves communicating with the Public mainly raffles, tombola etc. but also spending time asking people how they feel about CHFT, again very interesting conversations take place. You can find more about the CHFT Charity on their website CHFT Charity - Home.

Sheila Taylor, Public Governor Huddersfield Central 

On Monday 2 March 2026, three of our patient experience members, Kathy Green, Tony Thomas and Toseef Ahmed visited Rainbow House based in Elland as an Observe and Act visit.

The Observe and Act framework is a review of areas providing our clinical services whether it is in a hospital or community setting and focuses on the patient experience of the environment, services and care provided. The reviews are carried out by CHFT members and Governors who kindly volunteer their time and support. The reviews provide the opportunity to have an valuable insight into our services and provide a view “through a patient eyes”.

On the visit the members found Rainbow House a fantastic environment with amazing facilities for young patients and was designed in partnership with parents. It’s warm, friendly, and inviting providing state-of-the-art technology, sensory room provision and play facilities for patients with developmental conditions to help them feel more at ease in the surroundings in a community setting. The hub also provides the support families often need, providing referrals into other professional services and supporting the wrap around care we strive for our patients.