Vicky Sharples has been appointed the chief nurse and executive director of quality at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust. Vicky currently works at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT) as the Divisional Director for Emergency Care for Wythenshawe, Trafford, Withington and Altrincham, and starts in her new role on Monday 13 May.

She initially trained at the University of Salford and spent much of her career at MFT, including the former University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust, in a range of nursing roles, progressing from Ward Manager to Deputy Director of Nursing, before taking up the role of Deputy Chief Operating Officer and Divisional Director for Clinical Support and Specialist Surgery (CSSS) at The Christie in 2022.

As a dedicated nurse leader, she has a track record of driving high quality care and patient safety outcomes as well as a focus on patient experience.

Tim McDougall has joined Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust as their new executive director of quality, nursing and healthcare. He has been a registered mental health nurse for 27 years and has over 20 years’ experience in nurse leadership roles at a local, regional and national level.

Tim was previously the director of nursing and quality (specialist network) at Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust and, prior to that role, was associate director of nursing and governance at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust.

He also has a national advisory role for the Care Quality Commission for child and adolescent mental health, as well as a significant academic research profile.

Professor Mark Britnell will join Health Innovation Manchester as its new chair in September, joining the board of senior leaders to improve the lives of Greater Manchester’s 2.8 million population. Mark brings his vast experience of global public and private health systems across 81 countries, having led organisations at local, regional and national levels.

In 2000, Mark was appointed Chief Executive of University Hospitals Birmingham, and later went on to run the NHS South Central region before joining the NHS management board as Director General at the Department of Health, including leading the national NHS innovation strategy at the time.

Mark was also vice chair of KPMG UK until the end of December 2022 and before that was Global Chairman and Senior Partner for Healthcare, Government and Infrastructure at KPMG International.

He is a Trustee of The King’s Fund, a professor at the Global Business School for Health at University College London and an adjunct (part-time) professor at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Read more.

In Greater Manchester (GM), maternity safety remains a critical area of focus and the recent outcome in year five of the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST) means that all six GM NHS Trusts will continue to support the delivery of safer maternity care for women, birthing people, families, and newborns.

Each Trust has met all 10 of the required maternity safety actions. This fantastic outcome is thanks to the hard work of our Local Maternity and Neonatal System alongside our six local NHS Trusts, and the maternity and neonatal voices partnerships to improve the safety of maternity and neonatal services in GM.

Obstetric incidents can be catastrophic and life-changing, with related claims representing the CNST biggest area of spend. NHS Resolution, on the instruction of the Department of Health and Social Care, has incentivised NHS Trusts to actively adopt best practices and implement essential safety measures. It rewards NHS Trusts that demonstrate implementation of a set of core safety actions, that aim to continue improvement in the quality of care of maternity services.

Covid is still circulating and we are encouraging residents in Greater Manchester, aged 75+ and other eligible people, to protect themselves against the virus by booking their Spring vaccination no later than Sunday, 30 June.

Eligible people will receive either a text message, email, letter or message through their NHS app. But they don’t have to wait for an invite, they can book a vaccine appointment. We are also making it easy for those eligible to attend a walk-in clinic, or a local pharmacy.

With the bank holiday on our doorstep, we often see our health and care services come under increased pressure. NHS Greater Manchester wants to ensure that residents are well prepared and know where to go to get the care they need.

Our Spring Get To Know Where To Go campaign covers a number of themes including:

NHS Greater Manchester have launched a video to encourage the public to use the NHS App to order their repeat prescriptions, following changes to the way repeat prescriptions are ordered.

Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership has recently produced a new online guide for adult social care employers, health and social care organisations, professionals, higher education institutions and learners.

The Social Care Clinical Learning Environment Guide aims to to increase awareness and understanding of the adult social care workforce, and to inspire and support learner placements and clinical learning environments in adult social care settings for pre-registration trainee nurse associates, nurses and allied health professionals.

The Greater Manchester Social Care Learning Environment Group collaborated with local people who use social care and health care services, social care providers, higher education institutions, and learners who have inspired the people who access care and the social care workforce, through the care they provide while learning in the system.

A toolkit of useful resources has been developed to create awareness of this guide. You can download them from Google Drive. Please help us by sharing the images and accompanying messaging on your social media channels and share the assets with your partners and networks.

For further information and to read the guide, please visit www.gmcle.co.uk.

Heating homes and heat loss from draughty and poorly insulated homes has a big impact on the environment, contributing to the UK’s carbon emissions. Living in cold conditions can also cause respiratory conditions, cardiovascular diseases, poor mental health, and dementia – and make these illnesses worse.

That’s why Greater Manchester Combined Authority and its partners are coming together to make energy saving advice clearer and easier to access. Their Feel the Benefit campaign will help residents better understand how upgrades to their homes can help make them greener, warmer and cheaper to run, driving them to engage with the advice, support, and potentially free or discounted upgrades that we can offer them.

Anyone living in Greater Manchester can use their online grant eligibility checker to enter details about their home and circumstances to find out if they are eligible for support - providing a clearer pathway to home energy efficiency improvements.

Internationally recruited midwife Fataneh shares what she loves most about her role

Fataneh, who shared her story about being the first midwife at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to be recruited internationally.

Read Fataneh's story.

Stockport woman thanks midwife for positive birth experience

Sarah, from Stockport, gave birth to her fifth child, Arlo, in 2022 and worked with her midwife Eleanor to develop a personalised care and support plan.

Read Sarah's story.

NHS Targeted Lung Health Checks are running throughout May in Heywood, Wythenshawe, Wigan central and Salford (Eccles and Irlam).

After that, they move to Northenden and Brooklands (Manchester), Farnworth and Kearsley (Bolton) and Canalside and Middleton (Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale).

The checks are being rolled out via Primary Care Networks (PCNs). They are available to anyone who’s ever smoked aged 55-74 registered with a GP practice in the eligible PCNs listed. Please download the posters and social media assets to promote in your areas.

The National Strategic Information Governance Network awards were held last month and Greater Manchester celebrated two wins.

A team from across the our integrated care system won the 'Information Governance Innovator of the Year'. Well done to Jenny Spiers, George Tilson, Kate Wicks and Graham Hayler from NHS Greater Manchester, the University of Manchester and Health innovation Manchester for their fantastic achievement. Their work is helping to support the development of Greater Manchester's Secure Data Environment and enabling population health data to be securely used for planning and research.

Anton King, of Health Innovation Manchester, took home the 'Information Sharing Champion of the Year', in well-deserved recognition of his dedication and hard work over the past year across many diverse data and digital projects.

A new photography exhibition is kickstarting a conversation about grief to mark Dying Matters Week (6-12 May) as part of a collaboration between NHS Greater Manchester (GM), Projecting Grief and the Sing Their Name Choir.

The Projecting Grief exhibition tells the stories of people finding comfort, distraction or hope in a creative pursuit after losing someone they love and is popping up at The Trafford Centre from 6-12 May.

It will also feature three new stories from members of the Sing Their Name choir. The choir, made up by people bereaved by suicide, is thought to be the only peer-support group of its kind in the UK. The choir will be performing for the general public in the Trafford Centre on Wednesday 8 May at 7pm.

There will also be an opportunity to take part in two free creative workshops centred on grief and a paper collage workshop.

Quality of life means different things to different people, but it matters to everyone. More people are surviving cancer than ever before - but living with cancer, and the effects of its treatment, can have a negative impact on people’s physical, emotional and social wellbeing.

The NHS understands how important quality of life is and the difference it makes to patients. The Cancer Quality of Life Survey helps us understand what matters most to patients. The information collected from the survey will help us to work out how best to support people living with and beyond cancer and will help to influence health policy, professional practice and patient empowerment nationally. 

Patients receive the survey around 18-months after their diagnosis. By filling out the survey you can help us understand more about the quality of life people living with and beyond cancer have and shape policies and services, helping to improve quality of life for cancer patients. 

For more information visit www.CancerQoL.england.nhs.uk. 

A free helpline is available to help patients complete the survey and respond to any queries or difficulties - 0800 783 1775.