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Wayfinder Campaign: You Said. We Did!

In May, we asked all junior doctors in Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust what we could do to improve your working lives, via a Wayfinder campaign. We had fantastic engagement with the campaign with around 200 of you getting involved.

As a result of your contributions, it has become clear which areas need addressing – some of which can be dealt with quickly, whilst others need a bit more time and thought. The results of the campaign have been presented at numerous senior management and consultant meetings, to raise awareness of the issues you are all facing. Julian Hartley (CEO), Yvette Oade (Chief Medical Officer) and the Clinical Directors of all your departments have listened to and acknowledged your concerns, and they all share a real enthusiasm for making LTHT a flagship for improving junior doctor morale.

Here’s a little taster of some of what you have suggested:

You said: “I don’t know where the Mess is, or how to claim travel expenses. The intranet is chaotic and not user-friendly to junior doctors. There could maybe be specific website / webpage for junior doctors.”

We did: We are in the process of developing a One-Stop Website which aims to have all the information you will need to know in order to work as a junior doctor in LTHT– this will soon be available here.

You said: “Trainees should be invited to sit on college tutor interview panels to give us some ownership of our training.”

We did: What a brilliant idea! Departments are now being encouraged to invite trainees onto these interview panels. We are pleased to hear that Paediatrics has a trainee on the panel later this month.

You said: “I get bleeped constantly about jobs that really don’t need to be done by a doctor.”

We did: LTHT is now looking at different ways of allocating workload and improving the bleep system. This may take some time so bear with us whilst we work out the details.

You said: “Rotas are so inflexible and it’s really hard to get time off for important events such as weddings / birthdays.”

We did: There is now a policy in place to ensure trainees can get time off for important personal and professional events, even if you are struggling to swap your on-call/night shifts etc. This is currently available on the Intranet (and will soon be available on the Medical Education Leeds website) but you can ask Deployment for more details.

You said: “The trust must move towards an attitude of valuing its trainees as at present it appears training falls well down the order of priorities. There doesn’t seem to be a shared vision for what LTHT wants to provide for trainees.”

We did: On the basis of all of your suggestions, the senior leaders in the Trust have collectively made a commitment to a new vision for Junior
Doctors with a plan to regularly assess whether it has been achieved. This is a vision written BY junior doctors FOR junior doctors and is as follows:

Valuing junior doctors and their training by promoting a safe, supportive and enriching training environment so that every
junior doctor recommends LTHT as a place to work.

Below is a breakdown of this vision, which incorporates the Leeds Way Values. We want to ensure that junior doctors rotating through Leeds feel that
the values that are important to LTHT as an organisation also apply to them. Have a look and let us know any further comments you may have.

There were so many other ideas that came from the Wayfinder campaign and we are so grateful for all of your contributions. There is now a group of
very enthusiastic people working behind the scenes trying to implement as many of these changes as possible. The new Clinical Leadership Fellows
and the new Chief Medical Registrar would love to hear any ideas that you have – you can contact them via leedsth-tr.JDB@nhs.net. Alternatively you
can get involved with the Junior Doctor Body – check out https://www.medicaleducationleeds.com/jdb/ for more details.

Please do bear with us whilst we try to implement various changes but if you want to get involved in the “Improving Junior Doctors Working Lives”
Working Group then do get in touch via leedsth-tr.ProfessionalSupport@nhs.net

All the very best,

Dr Rammina Yassaie & Dr Rachael Mellor

On behalf of the Clinical Leadership Fellows and Junior Doctor Body