Get to know our new Chief Nursing Officer, Teresa Barker

[off screen] - You all ready? Yep, [off screen ] - ready to go. I'm a member of the Executive Team, I sit on the Trust board. I've got an overarching accountability for quality. So with the CQC, I'm the nominated individual for the CQC. It's a role that I take really seriously under the umbrella of looking at safety and effectiveness and experience for patients. And I represent a number of our professions at the Exec as well. So I represent nursing and of course that's in the title, but I also represent psychology and AHPs, and social workers. So I was doing my A levels, I was in year - what, what's it called now? Year 13? I think it was upper sixth back in the day. And a friend of mine said to me, I'm going to go and be a nurse. And I thought, that's a career I've not thought about. So I said, oh share the prospectus. I remember where I was sat, I remember what that prospectus looked like. And of course it wasn't on the internet, it was a hard copy of a prospectus back then. And I turned the page and there was a description of what it was to be a mental health nurse and I read about that and thought that's really interesting. I love to be with people, I love to feel that I'm helping people. And ultimately that's what led me to the University of Greenwich back in the late 90s. So first and foremost, I think it's about having really high standards, quality standards, and within that you've got to be able to kind of be quite courageous in how you hold yourself and others to account on how we live those standards daily. So I think that takes quite a lot of courage. And it's important to me that I work in a team where the conditions culturally are set, where that's welcomed and expected. And I certainly found that when I started to have conversations with Jane and with SPFT colleagues around what it was like to work here. So in terms of the role of CNO, I think that's really important. I think it's also really important to never lose sight of the fact that this role includes representing professions that aren't my profession. So my working relationship with the professional leads for psychology and social work and AHPs, including OT of course, is critical in that, as is my relationship with our Director of Legal Services, because legal sits within my portfolio too. So, it's such a varied role and I think to be curious and to want to work alongside others in how we achieve our quality overall is really critical. And that's something I really embrace in this role. Openness, honesty, listening, truly listening and creating an environment with people where people can be really honest and open with me about how they receive me as well as how I receive them. Somebody once said to me that if our staff are well and feel safe, that's ultimately how our patients will experience us. And so in every interaction that I have, I never lose sight of the impact that that then has on our patients and their families. My first priorities have been getting to know people, because I didn't know anybody in Sussex until I arrived here. And so that's been really important to me, is getting out and about and getting to know people. And I've been really struck by how welcoming people have been, how people are working, sometimes in really tough conditions, but still really focused on our patients and their experience and that of their families. That's been a real priority for me. As I said earlier, the quality umbrella of safety and effectiveness and experience is an area that I'm really prioritising and thinking about, what does that really mean? How do we really deliver on those key areas in a way that's tangible to the people that are delivering our services and the people that are receiving our services? So those are the key priorities for me currently. So I'm married, I've got two kids, they're growing up 19 and 17, and I've got quite large extended families. So my mum's Maltese, my mother in law is Belizeian, so we are from multicultural backgrounds and I really embrace that because there's a lot of difference in my family and I really embrace difference and different, different perspectives... and the food. So, yeah, I spent a lot of my time with my family, a lot of time travelling, a lot of time with my dogs. Got two dogs. Yeah, life's busy. I think the message for nurses, first of all, is a thank you. I've never known the pressures that we've experienced in the world of the pandemic and post pandemic. And the fact that people have been so welcoming, still so giving to me, to the organisation, to our patients, to our patients families, I think is incredible and it doesn't stop at our nurses, because our nurses are critically important, as are all of those other professions that I've spoken about today. And when we come together, multi professionally, that's where I think we deliver something quite exceptional to our patients and their loved ones. So that's my message.