Published on: 10 August 2018

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I want to begin by sharing a major announcement to make Burnley a university town with all the positive impacts that will have for the wider East Lancashire region.

This week saw the official signing of the lease to acquire Victoria Mill, the former University Technical College building, to kick-start UCLan’s educational blueprint for the town.

Working in collaboration with UCLan, Burnley Borough Council and a group of influential local business leaders, ELHT is actively supporting the University's education strategy which is designed to meet the existing and emerging skills' needs of Burnley and East Lancashire.

In short, numbers of UCLan students in Burnley are set to rise from under 400 to 2,000 by 2021 and up to 4,000 by 2025. In addition to expanding the town’s University places for healthcare education, the investment will also include undergraduate and postgraduate courses in advanced manufacturing; fitness and social care sectors; aerospace; the creative and digital media sector; social sciences; and business services. 

Over recent years we’ve worked hard to meet the various national standards set for the training and education needs of our staff and services. And this week I received some excellent news from the training and education staff here at the Trust. In response to staff feedback, in 2016 we introduced a new mandatory training programme consisting of 11 ‘Core Skills’ subjects which all staff are required to complete. And in just two years, thanks to the hard work of our Workforce Education team and the willingness of staff to embrace change, we’re proud to report that over 90 per cent of all staff in all Divisions are now ’core skills compliant’. This excellent achievement brings ELHT in line with the UK Core Skills Training Framework now in use throughout the NHS.

The start of August is traditionally the time of year when we welcome our new intake of junior doctors to East Lancashire Hospitals. ‘Changeover day’ this year saw 69 foundation year doctors join us at the end of July, followed a week later by a further 99 higher grade trainee doctors. Welcome each and every one of you to ELHT where you’ll find our reputation for high quality medical education is entirely warranted. Enjoy your time with us and we hope to see as many of you as possible practicing medicine here in East Lancashire when your university education is complete.

ELHT works hard to ensure the safeguarding of adults and children are applied with the wellbeing of all, at the heart of what we do. And the person at the forefront of our safeguarding efforts is Kathy Bonney, a woman known to many inside and outside the Trust for her passion and dedication. Kathy isn’t the type to seek attention or praise for her work but I was pleased this week to read that the SafeLives charity has honoured her with the title ‘Star of the Month’ for August. Kathy has many times gone above and beyond to protect vulnerable people in our local communities and is a deserving winner of this accolade.

Enjoy your weekend….