I’m currently a year through the NHS Management Training Scheme (MTS).  The Scheme:

‘exists to grow highly skilled managers who have the potential to go on to achieve senior leadership positions to improve Health and Healthcare’

Or so they say!

 I’m currently engaged in my elective placement.  The general idea of the elective is to diversify, gain new experiences and altogether become more rounded and brilliant than we all already are!  

 A fair few are in London, at the Department of Health or some other senior department/quango.  A lot of people have gone international, some to New Zealand and Australia, a few to more exotic places like Bangladesh and the Maldives………and I’m in Sheffield!

 How did you land that?????? I hear you all cry.  Well, at the last minute an exotic placement in Tanzania was snatched away so I had to settle for the best producer of cutlery in the western world.

 I’m working at Sheffield Care Trust, an integrated mental health-care provider.  My role is two-fold.  Firstly I am evaluating and creating a 5 year action plan for a link the trust has with a health-care organisation in Adjumani in Northern Uganda.  I’ll write a bit more about that at some point.

My other role is looking at ways to improve access to a BME Resource Pack (BME means Black and Minority Ethnic for all those not in the NHS and don’t speak in Acronyms).  The pack has background information, guidelines for working with interpreters and a whole load of bi lingual mental health assessment tools.  This is important because it has long been recognised that BME communities get a rough deal with all health provision.  The pack is brilliant, but getting people to use it is very difficult indeed.

 The elective’s 12 weeks along, and I’m 6/7 weeks in….. Before the elective I was based in Peterborough managing their Sexual Health and Endoscopy services, and often painful placement that in retrospect went much better than it seemed to at the time!   When the elective finishes I’m back to Peterborough to work in Public health at the PCT.  I’m looking forward to the new role……..but not at returning to Peterborough (which is a city apparently!)