This week we’re talking to Ella Hancock who is starting a brand-new position at DHU from the start of November.
As a Staff Engagement Officer for the NHS111 team, she will be the first port of call for mental health improvement, morale boosting campaigns, stories and activities whilst bringing suggestions and concerns back to the management team.
Ella started at DHU as a Health Advisor in August 2013 and has progressed and developed within the service to eventually reach the role of NHS 111 Non-Clinical Performance Manager. During that time she has guided and supported new starters as they joined the NHS111 team so when this exciting new opportunity was announced, it was the perfect time for her to use the skills she had honed over the years and put them to use in a different way.
Speaking about the role Ella said: “The size and scope of the 111 service and our teams have changed considerably over the years, so much so that a real need has emerged for a person who works within our advice centres to bring colleagues together and support a programme of engagement. I’d already been doing a lot of this kind of work in an informal way alongside my current role, so this felt like a natural next step in my career.
“This new role means I will be talking to people and building up relationships to find out what people want which takes time and trust. Across DHU there are so many people with thousands of interests and skills so it will be exciting to tap into that and see how we can bring out some new initiatives that we can all get involved with. I’ll be working hard to reach out to these people and to understand what support we can offer them.
“The role certainly goes beyond looking after colleagues, it also reaches out into the communities we serve. As a community interest company, colleagues across DHU regularly promote charitable campaigns and become involved in cultural or charitable events and when we do, we do them well; the Pakistan Flood campaign is a great example of this. One thing I’m looking forward to in this new role is reaching out to ‘Charity champions’ across the service to bring them together and support us all to do more. There’s so much potential, it’s a genuinely exciting time to be starting a role like this.
“I’m also looking forward to engaging with the staff forums, developing events across our sites and really highlighting the benefits available to colleagues. There are so many benefits to being at DHU that not everybody necessarily knows about or takes full advantage of, things like Westfield Health and the NHS Pension.
“As a manager I am always delighted to see other people succeed. Seeing what people want to achieve within the organisation and then giving them the tools to help them accomplish their goal is incredibly rewarding. Whenever anyone moves into a new role and reaches that next step they have been aiming for, I feel incredibly proud to have supported them on that journey.”
If you have a great idea, an interesting way to bring colleagues together or would like to share an achievement then Ella is on hand to talk about it now.
Thanks to Ella for telling us about her role and keep your eyes peeled for DHU’s next #WhatDoYouDo.
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