This week we spoke to Grace Abosede Matanmi (known as Grace), who, after completing her nursing associate training, is now aiming to realise her dream of becoming a nurse.

It could have been very different – growing up Grace wanted to be an accountant after developing a love of figures thanks to her accountant uncle. She did the job for several before becoming bored – and a chance happening when lunching with a friend set her on the path to nursing.

Colleagues at our Trust have come together to form a new group, the Digestive Diseases Centre, to improve patient care. As part of a joint away day, our Gastroenterology, Endoscopy, General Surgery, Divisional Triumvirate and Executive teams launched the group. The day was an opportunity for colleagues from a range of different departments in our Trust to come together and think about how we can make our services more efficient, improve communication, and ultimately deliver even better care for our patients.

This week we spoke to Victoria Miles-Gale, our Head of Patient Experience. Victoria is also the chair of our LGBT+ network, which recently oversaw the launch of rainbow NHS badges at our Trust and a special event to mark Pride month.

For the past three months we have been examining what Queen’s Hospital in Romford and King George Hospital in Ilford will look like in the future as part of developing a new clinical strategy.

Queen’s Hospital will play host to a special event, Save our Children, aiming to help tackle knife crime amongst local people – with top surgeon Martin Griffiths, the NHS’ newly announced first clinical director for violence reduction among the speakers.

Following the success of the two death cafes we held during Dying Matters Awareness Week in May, we’re making them a monthly event.

This week we spoke to Michael Magbagbeola, senior people and organisational development (OD) business partner. Michael, who runs his own charity, Save the King, has organised an event to raise awareness about knife crime, at Queen’s Hospital on Saturday 20 July.

This week we spoke to Andy Reeve, Matron for General Surgery, about his feelings on being a male nurse (and why there aren’t more), his former career as a postman and his interesting hobby creating everything from clocks to toy kitchens from wooden palettes!

Congratulations to Fawad Hussain (pictured), our dermatology consultant, who is our new Site Medical Director for King George Hospital.