Operational Estates & Facilities

Nomination

Award Category:

Estates & Ancillary

Individual or Team Nomination?

Team

Qualifying Qualities

In these challenging times, nominators were asked to show how the nominee had demonstrated the following qualities:

Exceptional work ethic - going above and beyond their job description, especially in the past 12 months.
Outstanding achievement/s in work or outside of the organisation where relevant.
Drive for innovation and proactive leadership in these challenging times.
High level of interpersonal skills, such as kindness, empathy, loyalty and thoughtfulness to staff and patients.
A resilience considering Covid to their role and to the health and wellbeing of their colleagues.

Nominators Answer

Nominee's story :

The Trust is made up for four hospitals – three in Oxford and one in Banbury. There are: 1.5 million patient contacts a year 12,000 staff 244,741sqm of retained estate 69.35 hectares of grounds PFI in all three Oxford Hospitals. On a monthly basis, the operational estates and facilities team: receives and distributes 45-50,000 items of linen manages around 30 tonnes of waste to incineration, or recycling washes 8,000 mops at the Horton alone tests 370 water outlets and responds to approximately: 100 security incidents 1,000 calls to the helpdesk. Over the last year, they also converted wards from clinical use to COVID-19 isolation wards in just a few days, and often working in full Level 2 PPE. EXAMPLES OF WORKING WITH OTHER TEAMS: 1. The extractor fans on the isolation rooms in the intensive care unit were intermittently failing and causing negative air pressure. When they failed, patients had to be quickly moved to another room. The bad air was dangerous for staff and patients. The fan suppliers were baffled – it made no sense. The Trust’s electricians were called in. They did a quick walk outside the ward and it was here that they found the fault. The electrical supply to the fans was being damaged by construction traffic driving over the cable. No need to replace the fans, no need for re-wiring. Just a simple re-routing of the cables with appropriate fencing. The stress of constantly moving patients around when a fan failed was burdening already stressed and exhausted ICU colleagues, so when they were told that the problem was permanently fixed, they cheered and cried. It was humbling. 2. The housekeeping service at the Horton has four supervisors. When COVID hit in March 2020, one was stranded abroad, two were very high risk and immediately isolated, leaving one supervisor left to manage the service 24/7. Two housekeepers stepped up to support the service and the team and, since then, one of them has been promoted to the permanent role of Housekeeping Supervisor. 3. Speed and experience are two of the team’s main assets. They were called out to check reverse osmosis units used to treat COVID-19 patients with kidney failure that were not working properly. 40 minutes later, in full Level 2 PPE, the water safety team established that the units needed to be replaced. Clinical, estates and procurement teams quickly worked together to procure and install new machines. The swift diagnosis and efficient installation of new machines ensured continuity of dialysis for these very sick patients. THE FUTURE: Many operational estates staff have decades of experience and, while they train new staff and apprentices with a programme of shadowing and mentoring, they are exemplary role models passing on the Trust’s core values and invaluable knowledge of the buildings’ unwritten idiosyncrasies. And how to do a workaround until a specialist contractor can get there. Whether small or large, all jobs are the same to estates because someone’s life could depend on how they have done their job.