Our Values and Objectives
At Lancashire Teaching Hospitals our values set out the behaviours we expect our staff to show to one another when caring for you as one of our patients. Our values are at the very centre of what we all do and define who we are both as individuals and as an organisation.
Our values are more than just words, they are the bedrock of our organisation and should remain constant in every situation.
We seek to live by our values so we can create a positive, trusting, supportive atmosphere enabling us to always deliver an exceptional quality of care. We have high standards for our staff, we believe
that we should always act with professionalism, integrity, compassion, empathy, understanding, showing dignity and respect to staff, patients and families from all groups or backgrounds.
We hope as a patient or relative you will be able to see us live the values in how we communicate, behave, work and care, we would want them to be apparent in every interaction we have with you.
The five core values we live by are;
Being Caring and Compassionate
To demonstrate we are working in line with this value we will:
- Use every opportunity to show care and compassion
- Have ‘I’m here to help’ frame of mind
- Try to understand what it is like to be in your shoes
- Be honest
- Give you the time and opportunity to express how you feel
- Take action to help make things better
- Provide you with information as a way of reducing the fear of the unknown
- Provide feedback to explain what has happened if things go wrong
- Be welcoming and friendly at all times
Recognising Individuality
To demonstrate we are working in line with this value we will:
- Listen to you in order to understand your views
- Ask you how you feel about your treatment
- Seek to understand your needs so we can provide you with the most appropriate care or service
- Check that you understand what we have said and provide you with a more simple explanation if need be
- Be self aware, understanding the impact our behaviour has on you and your relatives
- Try to understand your feelings and identify what we can do to assist you
- Give feedback in a sensitive yet constructive manner
- Be respectful of all
Seeking to Involve
To demonstrate we are working in line with this value we will:
- Ask you for your opinion, making you feel equal in any conversation
- Address you and not talk in front of you as though you are not there
- Use a communication style that emphasises listening over lecturing
- Seek to involve other colleagues, in order to provide you with the right level of expertise and determine
what approach would be the best for you - Give thanks and value all contributions regardless of
who makes it - Offer to get involved rather than waiting to be asked
- Explain why, so you can understand the reasons for the decision and what it means for you
- Offer guidance when complex choices have to be made
Building Team Spirit
To demonstrate we are working in line with this value we will:
- Work as one joined up team towards a common goal – providing you with high quality care
- Do what it takes to provide a high quality service by stepping outside of our ‘normal’ job roles if necessary to smooth out problem areas
- Take a shared approach to your care by effectively communicating across the team, ensuring colleagues
have the information they need to understand your situation and to prevent you from having to repeat
information - Make use of each others’ strengths, using colleagues’ skills and knowledge to provide the best
possible service - All work to the same standards providing a seamless service regardless of the situation, time of day and who is involved
- Be courteous and polite
- Challenge colleagues in an appropriate manner if standards are not being met or values are not being
‘lived’ - Use tact and tolerance when dealing with others
Taking Personal Responsibility
To demonstrate we are working in line with this value we will:
- Welcome constructive feedback then take steps to make changes in line with the feedback received
- Reflect on our own behaviour/performance identifying what could be improved
- Take a problem solving approach to challenges, issues or difficulties
- Propose solutions to resolve problems or processes that are not working
- Take issues on as they arise, rather than pretending we haven’t noticed them in the hope someone else
will sort it out - Recognise that each of us is responsible for our own
deeds, actions and language used - Apologise for mistakes made and seek to put things right
- Be concerned when things are ‘not right’
We believe that to provide the best care, we need to continually improve the way in which we provide services. If we are to be the best, we need to continually seek improvement and embrace change, empowering our teams to develop ideas and drive them forward.
Our strategic objectives are:
To demonstrate we are working in line with this value we will:
- To provide outstanding and sustainable healthcare to our local communities
- To offer a range of high-quality specialist services to patients in Lancashire and South Cumbria
- To drive health innovation through world class education, training and research
The delivery of excellent services to our local patients through the provision of district general hospital services is at the core of what we do. To achieve this, we need to ensure we focus on meeting key quality and performance indicators so our patients can be assured of safe and responsive services.
Our portfolio of services will continue to develop as the strategy for the provision of services across our region is developed, but the delivery of specialist services will remain at the heart of our purpose and the decisions we take in our day-to-day activities will be taken in the context of ensuring we remain as the region’s specialist hospital. We have recently undertaken a service portfolio review to ensure that we can deliver sustainable services which have key interdependencies to our regional service provision.
When we were established in 2005, we were the first trust in the county to be awarded ‘teaching hospitals’ status. We believe that developing the workforce of the future is central to delivering high quality healthcare into the future. We know we are a regional leader in respect of our education, training and research and as the only NIHR clinical research facility in the region and a leading provider of undergraduate education, we will continue to drive forward the ambitions described in our education and research strategies.