My name is Chris, and I'm LNWH’s new Chief Executive
My name is Chris, and I'm LNWH’s new Chief Executive.
Right now, I know that you are all working around the clock in what can only be described as a heroic response to Covid-19.
I’ve been working closely with my executive colleagues over recent weeks in order to stay informed and be prepared for what is to come. I want you all to know, whatever your role or service, just how impressed I have been by the rapidity of your response to change your practice so radically for the sake of our patients.
I have been still more impressed by your perseverance in coming into work day after day in the face of difficult personal sacrifices and unprecedented professional challenges.
Many of you, like me, have worked in the NHS for a long, long time. We have not seen anything like this before. But each of us, no matter how long our service, has a set of skills in which we have confidence. We have judgement that we have accumulated over our training and career. And collectively, we have experience that is wisdom.
In normal circumstances, I would be arranging meetings and visits to your services. While we may not be able to meet immediately in person, it’s important you know that you have my full support, and that I value each and every one of you.
In that spirit, you should feel free to write to me on chris.bown@nhs.net if there are issues you want to raise that you feel need additional attention. I respect the strength of feeling and emotion that you must be experiencing, and I will do all I can to help you. I am not at the centre of this story – you are.
We talk a lot about the nature of leadership in the NHS. But there has never been a more important time to prove that fashionable saying: that we are all leaders.
We must all lead by example, with scientific rigour, and in the name of compassion.
These are the lights that will guide me in the days and weeks to come.
Share them with me, and I know we will come through this together.
Thank you.
Chris
Chris Bown
Chief Executive