Let’s Talk with Mel Pickup

Hi, I’m Mel Pickup, Chief Executive of Bradford Teaching Hospitals. And welcome to this month’s episode of our podcast series, where I’m sitting down with colleagues and partners from across the Trust and the wider community to find out more about them and their contribution to the health and wellbeing of the people here in Bradford.

There are more than 9000 veterans across Bradford District and Craven, and this month I’m joined by two of them who have since gone on to become colleagues here at The Trust. And we will be discussing our recent award of the Veteran Aware accreditation. Fiona Mattison joined the RAF on the youth training scheme aged just 16, and is our complaints lead for Urgent Elderly and Specialist medicine.

She was part of the team that worked on the accreditation process and Bashir Ahmed is a service manager for surgery and digestive diseases here at Bradford Royal Infirmary and served around the globe during over 23 years in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Welcome both.

Fiona I believe that your family were more than a little surprised when you came home from the careers office with your papers ready to sign after a visit to the Force’s career office here in Bradford. What was it that attracted you then to the service?

Fiona Mattison: Actually, nothing. At the time. It was so, yeah, my family were surprised. In fact, I think it took my dad at least 2 hours to stop laughing. And I’d actually gone to work. I had a Saturday job at a salon in Bradford Town Center and I’ve been sent to do the butty run to the chip shop at lunchtime.

So off I trot up the road. And I passed the careers office and I looked in the window. I just thought, “that looks exciting.” So I went in and I had a chat and they said, “What time do you finish?” So I said, 5:00. They said, “Right, well, come up, and we’ll have a longer talk and see what you think.” So that’s what I did and that’s what spurred it.

There was nothing that was pre-planned at all. It was – it was really interesting. So I literally went home after my shift and said to my dad, are you busy on Monday morning? And he said, I’m always busy. What you want as well. Can you come in and sign some papers at the careers office, cause I am joining the RAF? Yeah.

Mel Pickup: So that’s a no previous family connections?

Fiona Mattison: No. My brother was in the army and my dad did national services. You know, most people’s parents did national service of an age. But yeah, no kind of there was, there was just nothing. I just went past there and there was just something that told me it looked, it looked great. And to be fair, I was terrible at hair, so that was never going to go anywhere. So yeah, that’s how it happened.

Mel Pickup: And what did you do in your career in the RAF?

Fiona Mattison: I started off as a telephonist and sort of went through that process of becoming a telecoms and, and that gets quite exciting when you start doing stuff like that. And I loved it because actually, as much as my dad thought it was funny and made comments about, “You’re not going to get out of bed in the morning. ” and “Your bedroom’s always a mess” and blah, blah, blah. That lifestyle was perfect for me.

I was given structure and praise when praise was due and criticism when I did something wrong. And to me it was it was like I had always meant to be there and it was a sort of an amazing transition. And I remember coming home on my first leave and bringing my number one uniform home, which was your posh one with all the gold buttons and everything and putting it on. And my dad just standing and shaking his head and he said, “I just gave you two weeks when we dropped you off at Hereford. ”

Mel Pickup: That’s great, and you never looked back. What about you Bash? Did you always have ambitions to join the forces?

Bashir Ahmed: I did, actually. I always did want to join the army, but I never knew in what part of the army, because when you don’t know, you don’t know. You just want to be part of that organisation. And similar to Fiona, I used to walk from home to Bradford College and I used to walk past the Bradford Careers Office, which is still there to this day. And I used to stand and look at the posters and just walk past it and that went on for, you know, quite a lengthy time trying to muster up the courage to actually walk through the door and actually ask for more information, and which I did on one occasion, and the rest is history, I suppose.

From there I came back once. I’ve been inside and had a discussion to tell my parents, who were quite surprised that they never, ever thought I would be going into that sort of career. But my dad felt that I probably wouldn’t last a day. And then…

Mel Pickup: Your parents, both of your dads didn’t have much faith in you did they?

Fiona Mattison: Not so much.

Bashir Ahmed: And that was the next thing I know is then I’ve received a letter asking me to join the training in the month of July down in Aldershot. And then that was it.

Mel Pickup: So we’re talking about the same careers office here then?

Fiona & Bashir: Yeah.

Mel Pickup: And so how, how come Fiona, you ended up in the RAF?

Fiona Mattison: Well the uniform looked prettier to me. Never liked Green. I wasn’t keen on gray. Not that color. But yeah, the RAF uniform that they had was just beautiful. And. And I just loved it, loved the hat. Lovely, yeah.

Mel Pickup: Air force was blue wasn’t it?

Fiona Mattison: Yeah, definitely.

Mel Pickup: So before we talk more about the actual accreditation, I want to find out a little bit more about you both and your roles here in The Trust. So Fiona, your role as complaints lead dealing with patients and their families who feel we didn’t get it right for them. What is that like?

Fiona Mattison: It is a tough job and sometimes it’s really hard to sit and listen to the, you know, things that people have experienced. You know, sometimes people are angry, sometimes people are upset and frustrated. Sometimes people are just grieving.

And that’s, that’s really, those are the tough ones. Those are the hard ones. But I always, I always think about the fact that, you know, we’ve got a real opportunity to make somebody’s life better, either by fixing something or by providing some explanations because sometimes it’s just around, you know, not understanding what happened, wanting to understand that journey around, around that family member, that person. And it’s quite gratifying to know that you can do that. You have the power to do that.

Mel Pickup: So you must have over the years, then developed a huge sort of back catalogue how we could perhaps better deal with situations in the moment to try and avoid falling short of people’s expectations.

So what are your top tips from everything that you’ve learned about what causes a patient or their family to complain? And what do we get wrong the most? How can we avoid that and improve things?

Fiona Mattison: I think for somebody who’s experienced something and things haven’t gone right for them, I think they come in with the armour on ready for a bit of a battle and for us it’s about being open and honest and you know acknowledging when we’ve got things wrong, listen to their concerns, acknowledge their concerns. You know, I’m really sorry to hear that, because often that’s all it takes.

Mel Pickup: And we all, in in every walk of life, we all experience the frustration and sometimes the anger when things don’t go right. So if you can think of a situation, you know, maybe you’ve bought something that hasn’t worked, maybe you place an order or somebody hasn’t come, maybe you were expecting a delivery, it doesn’t turn up. There’s any number of things. Things got canceled. And so if we just apply how we feel in those situations, which is we want straight answers, we want honesty, we want people who are receptive to us saying how we feel. It’s really, really important stuff. So what you do and your valuable insights can really help us develop as an organisation to be one that learns from our mistakes.

Thanks, Fiona. Bash, tell us, your work now in surgery must be very, very different after a long career in the Army Medical Corps. How did that military experience prepare you for your career in the NHS?

Bashir Ahmed: Well, I’m actually a qualified ODP within the Army, and that’s what they trained me for, going into the Army, not knowing what I want to do with the army, you go through a selection process and they get you into the right direction, especially in the areas where there are shortages of staff.

So I ended up being trained as an operating department practitioner, which is a title that we use now. But in the Army they were called operating theater technicians. So I was qualified as that and I was working in the military hospitals, which were then dotted around both in the UK and also abroad.

We had our own military hospitals for the Army, the RAF, and the Navy. So I predominantly worked in the Army hospitals and I learned my skill set there, as well as working on operational tours in field hospitals, field surgical teams, and in regimental aid posts. So, I gathered all my skills from that, and I think that prepared me for the NHS in a very similar sort of clinical environment.

But in the latter part of my career, the Ministry of Defence decided to close down the military hospitals and they created the Ministry of Defence hospital units dotted around the country within civilian hospitals. So for that part of my career, I actually worked in civilian hospitals as part of the military contingent there, helping with the clinical side of things, as well as the management side of things.

So we learned our management and management skills through our time there. Prior to that, we were just keeping our clinical skills up for the event of our military role, which was trying to provide medical services during a conflict. Yeah.

Mel Pickup: And leadership is leadership, isn’t it? Wherever you are asked to sort of deploy the skills?

Bashir Ahmed: Absolutely. Leadership is something that the army does teach you. You know, people say you can’t be taught, but there is a lot of things that you can actually be taught and learn from others as well. And what I did find in the military compared to civilian life, that in the military leadership sometimes came very easy because it came with your rank and your authority. So when you asked somebody to do something, it was done.

On the opposite side, in the NHS, you don’t tell people what to do. You ask people to do things for you. You work as a team and you have to find the things that actually drive each individual because every person is different and you got to attack the individual in the way that actually motivates individuals to get the things done. The same sort of trick will not work with everyone. You have to look at the individual team members and get them to come on board with your way of thinking and how to deliver the service that we expect you to deliver.

Mel Pickup: And you joined the service back in the eighties. And so I’m guessing during your time there, you must have seen a lot of changes both in terms of medicine but also the cultural change within the armed services.

Bashir Ahmed: When I joined in the eighties, there was a lack of awareness around that to be fair and, and you had racism like you would have in any, any other organisation. But there were rules and regulations that people adhered to. And slowly but surely things have improved, I think massive strides since the days when I was there.

There was no such thing as halal food, etc. for the Muslim soldiers. So what you were given was it, you either had it or you didn’t have it. That’s how it was. But again, this is where the soldiers and the military camaraderie comes in. For example, if you were given a 24 hour rations pack with half the stuff that you can’t eat and your colleagues swap and change with you and they give you the bits that you can eat and they take the bits that you can’t. And, you know, I spent so many years managing with that and I’m absolutely grateful for that camaraderie that you actually get within that sort of organisation.

For me, the Army has been obviously the most wonderful thing that’s happened to me, and I always admire and always recommend people to join.

Mel Pickup: Bash, I’m surprised you’re still here. Have you ever been poached by the Army Career service?

Bashir Ahmed: What the Army did ask me was that when I was leaving the services, they did ask me to stay on as part of the recruitment, etcetera, and I did quite a few of these sort of visiting tours that the Army was doing. But I personally felt that I’m going to be leaving the Army. That was my first career and I’ve still got years to give and I want to be able to start a second career. And I felt that the longer I remain in the military, the shorter I am giving myself to start the second career. And so I joined the NHS.

Mel Pickup: But still very, very clearly such a strong advocate and really passionate about it and with good reason, because the relationship between the armed services in terms of the provision of health care and the NHS is really strong, isn’t it?

Bashir Ahmed: Ever since the Army, I should have said the MoD decided to have these Ministry of Defence hospital units in the NHS. That was the whole idea. The idea was for the military to keep their clinical skills for that awkward time to actually go on operational tours. And it was also the NHS trying to develop those skills for us.

Don’t forget in the Army hospitals we were just dealing with very, very little casualties, very little trauma, and you only face that type of trauma when you’re working in bigger civilian hospitals. So we were able to work in the trauma operating theaters to gain those skills and maintain those skills for that day when we were needed in a conflict.

Mel Pickup: And things like reservists and people whose day job is in the NHS but they still do territorial army, lots of colleagues over the years who have been quite high ranking officers within and then they kind of hang their boots up on a Sunday evening and put the uniforms back in the wardrobes and be back in the office in the NHS come Monday.

Bashir Ahmed: Absolutely. There’s a massive role to be played by the territorial Army in nearly every big conflict. The backup team have always been the reservists. I’ve come in even in the second Gulf War, we had the reserves come in to boost the numbers, you know, because the shortage of the clinical side, the medical side in the army is actually topped up by the reservists where they don’t want that to be as a full-time career, but they are willing to spare their time to come in and support the forces. And without them, I don’t think that the current military infrastructure would be able to support a major conflict like they have done in the past.

Mel Pickup: Yeah, Fiona, one of the things that we’re doing here in Bradford is to look to set up a staff network for yourselves and colleagues like you who have served. What would that mean to the veterans who work at Bradford Teaching Hospitals?

Fiona Mattison: I’m currently working with Kez Hyat on this to set this group up, and I think it’s a real opportunity for veterans and reservists to get together on a regular basis, to have a voice, to talk about lived experiences, to talk about difficulties because I think often it’s a real transition when you come out, I don’t know whether you’ve found that it’s, you know, some people find it easier than others and sometimes it’s really nice to get together and talk about those different experiences and different paths we’ve all gone down throughout that.

And you know, we’ve all got different stories to tell about our transition from the forces and I remember when I came out, my then husband was still in and he was due to come out and we were looking at housing. We didn’t have obviously we lived in married quarters. We lived down south because that’s where we’d settled and that’s where, you know, we had our children and they were in school. And I remember ringing the local council up and to say, you know what, what’s the process for getting on the housing list? And she said, well, where were you born? I said, well, I was born in Bradford. Well, you need to go home then. You need to go home and go on that list. I said, I’ve got family and I’ve got children and they’re in school and they like it here. And we’re settled and we’ve lived here for a long time. And I found that really, really frustrating because there was no understanding of, you know, that life we’d set up in that life we built down there and we wanted to stay there as a family. So there’s all sorts of issues because that force time.

Mel Pickup: All your sort of stability, becomes your family, becomes your friends, your neighbours.

Fiona Mattison: Absolutely yeah, everything. And you live and breathe it and it’s all in that bubble and that set often that safety bubble. Yeah. So my first job when I came out, I went to work at Broadmoor Hospital and actually I really loved it because I went from working underground and where all the doors were locked to working within walls where all the doors are locked. So it’s like again, a slide straight in there. I thought it was great and I felt safe and, and it was again, it was a community. It was almost like a community because, you know, I lived nearby and everybody knew each other. So it for me was probably an easy transition. But I know for a lot of people it is not.

Mel Pickup: And quite rightly, you know, it’s not something that if you had an experience that you would necessarily think about.

Bashir Ahmed: I mean, also having a network would basically assure the actual veteran that they are valued, respected, that he actually goes a mile for boosting their morale as well.

Mel Pickup: Yeah. Yeah. I’d say thank you because you have served your country.
And what about for patients then? What does the Veteran Aware accreditation mean?

Fiona Mattison: Okay, so the Veteran Covenant Health Care Alliance, it’s a bit of a mouthful, is a group of NHS providers. And all these organisations have pledged to ensure that we provide the best care for our armed forces community. So this means that we, you know, we want to identify those patients who work or have worked in the military as well as their family members.

You know, and this is to ensure that they’re not disadvantaged as a result of their service. And we ensure the best care to those, you know, meet their care needs. You know, we can do big things, but we can do little things like make sure that they’re aware of the charities. You know, we can signpost them to our local partners in, in the council for Housing, for HMRC, for, you know, to help. There’s lots and lots of resource there to, to signpost people to.

Bashir Ahmed: It’s pointing them into the right direction, helping us support them to actually get the help that they need which they’re entitled to.

Mel Pickup: But one of the myths around the veteran aware movement and the military covenant is that veterans can somehow jump the queue. Could you tell me about that misconception? Because it is a misconception, isn’t it?

Fiona Mattison: Absolutely. I mean, I’ve got friends that are sort of my ex-colleagues from the RAF. I had one saying that she you know, she developed an issue with something I can’t remember where it was. And she’d been and she’d been put on a waiting list. And she said, I thought we have priority. I said, well no you don’t. And there are certain circumstances where, you know, if you’ve developed an injury in, you know, the course of your military career, we can make sure that, you know, you’re down the right path where it doesn’t mean that you jump the queue.

It’ll still, you know, the clinical requirement will always be taken into account. But for instance, if you’re on a waiting list for some procedure to be done and you are posted to somewhere in Scotland or Wales or wherever, and then you moved into another area of the country, we need to make sure that wherever you were on that list is the same place that you’re going to be on this list and your family members as well. You know, if you’ve got children or your partner’s waiting for some procedure. So it’s things like that. So no, it’s not queue jumping, it’s just making sure that you’re not disadvantaged in any way.

Mel Pickup: And that awareness because you would, you know, and until you just said that you and I would. Yes, of course they do. And that would happen. If you didn’t, you know, do something about it. So I mentioned earlier that there’s an estimated 9000 veterans in our community and we’re hoping to enlist some of them to volunteer with us at the Trust. Can you tell me more about that Fiona?

Fiona Mattison: The idea was if we can reach out to our community and find those individuals that are veterans or even that, you know, that served and you know, they were a child of, that might want to come have those experiences and understandings of what the requirements are and be able to go out into, you know, patient areas, you know, with the right training and the right guidance.

And it’s interesting because it was something that I became aware of when I was doing some volunteer work myself, doing some portering a while ago. And I have my veterans badge on my lanyard. And, you know, I was going to different areas to pick patients up, to take them to different areas and I had a lot of patients that that would say, did you serve? Yeah. And all the way around would be chatting. And it actually struck me how many there were at the time. And I did think to myself, because sometimes they just want to tell you, sometimes they just want to tell you about their national service or when they were posted to such and such and, and about having things in common. I had one gentleman saying what was your best bit in a ration pack? And I said, my, my best bit in the ration pack was the bit that everybody else hated, which were brown biscuits, do remember those.

Bashir Ahmed: I do. Used to call them dog biscuits!

Fiona Mattison: Yeah. And I love them for some bizarre reason. So there were things like I like brown biscuits and hot chocolate. What was your favourite?

Bashir Ahmed: The best thing was, believe it or not, was the breakfast, which was beans and sausage. It was just absolutely amazing. The first thing they did all morning was superb.

Fiona Mattison: Yeah, I did it. When it came in a tin. And you had to put it in your pan of boiling water. Paste it and put it in your pan of boiling water. I loved ration packs. I always thought they were like, mealtime was so much fun.

Bashir Ahmed: And there was also competition when you were on operational tours, like with the Canadians, the Americans and other countries. And sometimes when we were working together, I would sit down and open up, our sort of pack for the lunch and we’ll be looking at what they’re getting in their packs because they were supplied by their country and we were spoiled. And the Americans, they hated their food and they actually prefer ours.

Fiona Mattison: We on the other hand, we loved their food, they had so much in theirs. Like lots of American sweeties.

Mel Pickup: You always want what you haven’t got, don’t you?

Fiona Mattison: Mind you, I always used to trade Kendall Mint Cake.

Mel Pickup: The whole economy underpins the military services across the world and it’s called ration packs. So, one aspect of the accreditation is being a welcoming and supportive environment for veterans like yourselves to come and work here. What would you say to a veteran who might consider joining us here at Bradford Teaching Hospitals in paid or volunteering roles?

Bashir Ahmed: I think the average military individual has got a wealth of transferable skills. And there’s I think a lot of areas in the hospital where that could be really useful and they could actually use their skills that they actually had in the forces and actually do a great job. I really would encourage them.

Fiona Mattison: I agree. I agree. And we’ve got lots of things that are opening, coming in now, stuff that works and things and lots of opportunities to get involved. You know, I’ve got lots of plans for our Veteran Aware Armed Forces Day and Remembrance Day and things like that.

Mel Pickup: And you’d like some help, Fiona?

Fiona Mattison: Absolutely, absolutely.

Mel Pickup: So more people, more veterans to come.

Fiona Mattison: More veterans to come, and we can do loads and loads of lovely things.

Mel Pickup: Fiona and Bash, thank you so much for your time today and for your service, both in our military and of course here in our NHS. And you can find out more about the accreditation and the military covenant on our website. Just search for Veteran Aware.