‘I’ve always been terribly proud to be a nurse’

After nearly a decade spent creating new routes into nursing, ‘growing our own’ staff from our local communities, and whipping our wards into shape, our Chief Nurse, Kathryn Halford, is moving on at the end of this month.

Kathryn, who was presented with an OBE for her services to nursing by Prince William in 2018, has spent over 40 years in the profession starting when she was just 18, having been inspired by the TV series Angels, about student nurses.

She joined our Trust in January 2016 and leaves our nursing workforce in a much stronger position than before. Turnover of our nurses and midwives alone has shrunk from 25% to just 4%, while our vacancy rate has gone from almost 40% to 9%.

In her push to drive down vacancies among our nurses, Kathryn has been passionate about ‘growing our own’ workforce from the local area, and providing alternative routes into nursing for those who can’t afford to study without working.

This led to the introduction of our nursing associate scheme, which has allowed healthcare assistants to train to become nurses, and we were one of the first Trusts in the country to offer a degree nursing apprenticeship, giving our staff the opportunity to gain a nursing degree while continuing to work full-time.

Kathryn said:

It’s made a huge difference to our workforce. Many people can’t afford to go to university and face massive student loans.

Apprenticeships enable them to work and learn at the same time. It’s not just our nurses who are benefiting from them; we have lots of staff on a range of apprenticeships including radiography and business courses. Our Apprenticeship Hub is one of the things I’m most proud of as it has made a huge difference to the quality of people’s lives.

Kathryn led the introduction of our Apprenticeship and Career Hub, recently rated ‘good’ in all areas by Ofsted. We’re one of few ‘employer providers’ in the country, which means as well as offering apprenticeships to our own staff, we can also deliver them to others.

Another scheme which has helped drive down turnover of our new nurses was unexpectedly inspired by a Robert De Niro film, The Intern. Kathryn decided to harness the experience of our seasoned nurses to support their new colleagues after seeing the film, in which a retired De Niro returns to the workforce, sharing his skills and knowledge with a much younger colleague.

Our Senior Intern team has been so successful it has won several awards, had a BBC documentary made about it and we’ve had 90 other organisations visit us to learn about it.

As someone who took apart a commode on one of her first ward visits at our Trust, and found it wasn’t quite clean enough for her liking, introducing our Ward Accreditation scheme was inevitable for Kathryn.

The scheme aims to improve and standardise the quality of care on our wards, with them being assessed by senior nurses and other experts and awarded bronze, silver or gold status.

Kathryn has also led the charge on celebrating our staff with regular ‘thank you’ events.

She added:

You should say thank you to people, they recognise and appreciate that. We’ve had thousands of staff attend a range of events and we’ve tried to vary them to cover the needs of as many people as possible.

We’ve had breakfast, lunch and evening events so people could come no matter what their shift, and family fun days too.

After a varied career which included caring for some of the first patients affected by the Aids epidemic and victims of the London bombings in 2007, as well as regularly meeting celebrities and royalty. Kathryn explains why now is the time to move on:

I’ve lived away during the week for a long while and I want to have more time at home (though I’m not sure my husband’s so keen!) I want to be there to help my mum, as well as have the chance to indulge my hobbies, like water colour painting, paddle boarding and gardening.

However, I will miss the people enormously. I’ve made some very good friends, especially having been here throughout Covid, that experience really anchors you. I’ve always been terribly proud to be a nurse and I’ve done a lot here, it’s time for someone else to take over.

Matthew Trainer, our Chief Executive, said:

Kathryn is dedicated to improving the quality of patient care and has been a fantastic leader for our nurses and allied health professionals. She has been our Chief Nurse for more than nine years, including helping to lead our organisation through the toughest days of the Covid pandemic and the hard winters that followed.

Kathryn has opened up many opportunities for local people to find careers at BHRUT and in the wider NHS. Our Apprenticeship and Careers Hub has gone from strength to strength under her leadership and her Chief Nurse Fellow programme has allowed a range of staff to gain valuable experience.

Kathryn, who is taking up a part-time role at the CQC, will be succeeded by Nic Kane, currently Chief Nurse at Kingston and Richmond NHS Foundation Trust.