Yesterday was my first anniversary at Willow Burn and I wanted to take the opportunity to share some reflections on my first year here as Director of Operations.
Firstly, can I say a huge thank you to all the Trustees, Staff and Volunteers. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the last 12 months and been hugely impressed by the commitment, professionalism and clarity of purpose I’ve seen across the charity.
Fundamentally the charity is well governed and has a fantastic team of staff and volunteers delivering what is needed to enable us to provide quality care to patients and those important to them. Our hospice, day services and family support team deliver much needed services, with compassion being at the heart of all they do. Our shops are an excellent source of income and the power of recycling donated goods for the benefit of all and our café is the heart of the charity.
We have a huge range of amazing supporters, who provide much needed funds through their generosity and hard work – without them we couldn’t deliver the high-quality care that we do.
All parts of the organisation – administration, fundraising, marketing, volunteering, family support, day services, in patient care, retail and café – work well together and the organisation truly knows why it exists.
Thinking back to when I joined, I did feel that we needed to tighten up a few areas such as policy, health & safety and governance structures. Another reflection was that, for whatever reason, the charity lacked a little self-confidence. One of my aims was to start to address this, and while it will take time, I feel we have begun to feel a little more confident about the hospice and its future. This was one reason why I felt we need to rewrite our mission statement. Our new mission, I feel, better reflects what we are here for –
“To deliver hospice care of the highest standard to our patients and those important to them – now and in the future”.
The results of our 2022 staff survey illustrate an organisation which knows why it exists and, broadly, has a very positive attitude to its work.
There have been some real highlights for me in the last 12 months–
Light up a Life and Carols Around The Tree made it a truly memorable festive season.
the Nurses Fair this spring had such a lovely feeling of people working together.
a staff development session in March, where we brought everyone together. It was a great opportunity to share ideas and plans for our future.
The Willow Burn Black Tie and Fabulous Ball - sadly, I missed the Ball through COVID-19, but I know it was a huge success in terms of raising funds and building relationships
I’ve been busy this year restructuring the charity’s governance with a new governing document and revised sub committees – Quality Compliance, Finance & General Purposes and Marketing & Fundraising. I certainly feel that the charity will benefit from these changes over the long term.
In the future we will need to be better able to demonstrate our commitment to environmental sustainability and the equality, diversity and inclusion agenda and plans have been developed with this in mind.
We’ve applied for a ‘Better Health at Work’ award and I’m very grateful to everyone who completed the initial questionnaires for this. We’ll be organising a series of campaigns over the next year to meet the needs identified by staff.
Whilst budgets are always tight we were able to expand our Children’s Bereavement Counselling service and Complementary Therapies in response to increased demand.
All organisations face challenges, and we are no exception. Some current challenges we face are –
a change in our central funder from Clinical Commissioning Group to Integrated Care Board
the need to modernise our paperwork to a more electronic system
financially the charity is highly sustainable, but the current rate of inflation will have implications on budgets
In conclusion, we are in a good place to continue to treasure lives through high quality, personalised palliative and end of life care and bereavement support for many years to come.
We are looking forward to innovating and developing our business through retail and the development of land adjacent to our car park.
Thank you to everyone who supports Willow Burn Hospice and the welcome I have received. I look forward to the coming year with great anticipation and confidence.
Regards, David
