In this Q&A blog, Maureen Burke discusses what motivated her to become a public governor at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, her journey, experiences and what excites her the most in her role, as well as looking forward to the future.
What motivated you to become a governor?
I had a long career in the NHS. I was motivated by its survival and the provision of quality in services for all. I wanted to continue my influence of care and treatment but in a non-clinical way at a senior level.
How long have you been a governor?
I have been a governor for three years. I had a year of being a governor outside of the pandemic and two years during, which brought its own challenges.
Did your role as a governor change during the pandemic?
The pandemic had a huge influence on my role as a governor. We could not meet each other in person, and we had quite a few new governors elected just before the pandemic. I felt for the new governors as role is brought to life when you can meet people, see the services, and meet the board face to face – it helps you understand the role and the impact we have as governors. A big part of our role is building a relationship with the board and being able to recruit members – I am glad can now connect again in person as well as virtually.
What career/jobs/life experiences have you had that are relevant to your governor role?
I started my career in the NHS in 1976. I have been fortunate in my career as I have worked in a range of settings and domains. A long part of my career was in mental health in senior roles such as managing services and a nurse consultant. I was also a carer for a family member who had dementia for 12 years. This gave me a whole new way of looking at care as I could see how and when carers get support. I think my combination of professional and personal experience with the NHS is quite rich and has given me relevant experience for the governor role.
What made you stand for election to the governor advisory committee?
I was delighted to be elected to the governor advisory committee. I stood for the election as I believed I could influence the role of the governor on a national platform. I thought the opportunity to get my voice heard and act as a resource for all mental health governors was an exciting, important, and unique prospect. For example, if there was an emerging mental health governor issue, I could inform at a local level but also nationally. I enjoyed adding to the national picture and my trust appreciated this too.
What do you think is the most important role a governor plays?
I think our ability to look both inwards towards our team and outwards towards our community is important.
When looking inwards, we provide witness and scrutiny as to how the trust is functioning. We gather information to provide support and challenge the team. The balance between support and challenge ensures that the trust is operating as effectively as possible.
When looking outwards, especially for our elected governors, we can find ways to support and represent our members (i.e. those that make up our local community). This can be challenging in the pandemic, but it is our job to find innovative ways to hear what our members have to say – whether this is raising a concern or asking a query.
Do you have any examples of any impact your council of governors has made?
There are a few examples of impact our council of governors have made.
Firstly, we have a lead governor and then we have three governor leads for the following:
- governor development and membership strategy
- equality diversity and inclusion
- quality.
We are a large trust with governors that have specific skills, knowledge, and expertise. I believe having a lead governor and three governor leads allow us to gather and feedback information more efficiently, meaning we can provide relevant detail in an effective way to our team. It also allows us to build better relationships with Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) and remove barriers between NEDs and governors.
In my role I have created the governor development plan. We have had a range of masterclasses for governors including finance, strategy, and quality. This means that governors are up to speed on what needs to be understood in these arenas, allowing for greater understanding of their role.
Secondly, we have made impact through our service visits. We have clusters of governors go into the community to see how our services are being run. As of this year, we are now doing service visits with NEDs. Working with NEDs ensures we are working effectively and collaboratively as a team.
Finally, we are also doing patient led place visits. Taking part in this national framework ensures that we are creating impact as governors on ground level. Our service user carer governors are taking the lead on this and it is proving successful.
Has the pandemic changed the way you increase membership?
During the pandemic we have adapted our membership strategy to become visible and accessible both virtually and in person.
Virtually, governors have redesigned the website by making our joining page easier to find and more visually pleasing. We have also updated the web link (making it shorter and more sharable) and we have started doing blogs and vlogs on our website. This has made a big difference and our page now has increased engagement, with lots more information about what we do and why.
In person, governors are present at all trust events, and we have a QR code that people can scan to take them to the joining webpage. One of our governors also took application forms to a site visit which has increased membership.
We have also looked at our application forms to see if we can make them more accessible and easier to complete. We also take email addresses in the forms to ensure more efficient communication between us and members.
Our membership strategy allows for these innovations and our communications team offer great support. This collaborative working allows us to think more broadly. We also have a monthly data review to see our demographic information and see what impact we are having immediately.
What demographic has been a focus for your council of governors?
We have been looking to increase the demographic of young people. Personally, I have been in touch with our youth council and had a meeting with them recently.
During this meeting, I was virtual and the students were all together joining from college. I explained what we were trying to do and why that is important for young people. After this meeting, six students have said they would like to be members.
What I particularly liked about this meeting is they also offered their input and suggested they become a cohort. I thought this was great as it would offer a safe space for them in a council of governors meeting and allow them to work collaboratively with one another. I am meeting with them in the next couple of weeks to discuss this further.
I have also reached out to young people addiction services so we have representation in this area as well. I hope the idea of cohorts and the ways we reach out to young people in the community can be cascaded across constituents if this becomes successful.
What do you enjoy most about being a governor?
I enjoy the busyness and influence of the role. I think I use skills as a governor that would otherwise be dormant. For example, I still get to influence the care and treatment of our service users. I enjoy finding out how we can do our best and celebrating real success as a trust. I also enjoy being part of a high functioning trust that is innovative and forward thinking.
What changes in healthcare that you see locally or nationally excite you?
I am looking forward to working as part of an integrated care system. I think this has been a long-time coming in terms of an organisational framework but also in terms of working across organisational boundaries. I think it will reduce bureaucracy across our services and get practitioners working alongside each other from different professional backgrounds. I find it really exciting and I hope people will get what they need a lot sooner and in a more holistic way.
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