Our Director of Quality and System Performance and registered nurse, Liam Williams, shares his thoughts on getting vaccinated against COVID-19 and the personal and community benefits.

The pandemic shone a light on the health and care workforce and the difficulties being faced in recruiting and retaining staff. These gaps will have a direct impact on patient care and population health. This is despite all the goodwill in the world amongst existing staff who are facing burnout after 18 months of pandemic strain.

For this year’s Black History Month, Gus Mbudaya spoke to BME ally Luke Whewall. They talked about his heritage and growing up in Zimbabwe, his move to the UK at the turn of the century, and the path that led him to SCW, an organisation that he describes as ‘walking the walk’ when it comes to equality and diversity.

Lung cancer is one of several cancers whose symptoms are the focus of the next phase of the ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaign. Launched by NHS England & Improvement working with Public Health England, this phase of the campaign went live in August 2021. 

David Ibbotson, Operations Director for the NHS Immunisation Management Service, reflects on the success of the national vaccination programme as we commence the start of the winter vaccination campaign (COVID-19 boosters and flu). He sums up the programme milestones and describes how the learnings will benefit the ongoing rollout of invitations.

James Jackson, Workforce EDI programme manager, shares his thoughts on inclusion, specifically belonging and intersectionality.

This striking comment from Dr Bola Owolabi, Director for Health Inequalities Improvement at NHS England, represents an increasing emphasis that health improvement for populations can and should largely be achieved through tackling health inequalities and a focus on the most disadvantaged groups. 

For the sixth year running, our procurement team were excited to have been shortlisted for the UK National GO Awards 2021. We're extremely proud to have received the Highly Commended award for the COVID-19 Outstanding Response - NHS and Healthcare organisations category. This year the team was selected together with our partners, System C & Graphnet Care Alliance and Synertec. 

Behind every delay in the transfer of a patient from a hospital into their future place of care, there is a person, in the wrong place to best enable their recovery. SCW’s Head of Strategic and Service Innovation, Wendy Marshall, explores the challenges of discharging a patient into intermediary or longer-term care and shares her thoughts.