Our latest peer-to-peer Star Award winner is Paediatric Consultant, Dr Alistair Morris, for his efforts in improving training in the Paediatric Department. He was nominated by General Manager, Rachel Brown, who said:
"Dr Morris is committed to improving the standard of training in Paediatrics. He has been pivotal in helping us with GMC trainee survey improvement and has worked collaboratively with the senior leadership team to streamline and improve our rota ensuring a positive experience for our paediatric trainees.
"He is constantly looking at new ways to improve access to training and also embracing new methods, for example his ongoing project to digitise training. Dr Morris has independently created a new digital welcome and induction booklet for our trainees that can be sent prior to their commencement with us, explaining our services, how we work and collating useful resources into one single reference point. This will support the warm and welcoming approach we want to convey to our trainees to ensure they feel valued and recognised during their time with us.
"He is working incredibly hard to support our trainees with self-rostering to improve their work life balance. This has been an incredibly challenging project and one which Dr Alistair Morris has tackled with enthusiasm and (lots of) patience.
"Dr Morris is collaborative, very supportive of colleagues, compassionate and kind. He gladly takes on extra work and goes the extra mile to support paediatrics and ensure our trainees get the most out of their time with us. The senior leadership team and I cannot praise him highly enough as he really does choose to live by the values of our Trust."
Dr Morris (pictured, centre) said: "Having your work recognised is always greatly appreciated, however this award also goes to the whole paediatric department who have supported me and put the extra effort in from all sides to improve the training for our resident doctors.
"The resident doctors are a temporary workforce within the Trust whose feedback can be missed and who can easily compare us to other Trusts due to the rotational nature of their jobs. By focusing on the detail in their feedback, both locally and nationally, we can bring our One Culture of Care to ensure the impact and stress of rotating to a new hospital with new people and their new ways of working is minimised to meet their basic needs in terms of work-life balance. By giving them the best training experience we not only help produce better doctors but also secures our future workforce when they apply for permanent jobs here - just as I did from when I was a registrar here 20 years ago."
