New leadership team on Exmoor ward at Musgrove Park Hospital

Taking a walk through the long corridor on level one of the Duchess building at Musgrove Park, you'll come to Exmoor ward, a general medical ward that’s undergone a recent period of change.

This summer, Katy Howe joined the ward as its new manager, with Mawuta Logo – also known as Jesse – joining her as junior manager.

The ward is a mix of different types of colleagues, from healthcare assistants and nurses, to doctors, physiotherapists and occupational therapists – and many more.

Following a stint as our clinical skills manager, Katy has returned to frontline patient care with previous experience as junior manager on our Wordsworth ward.

“It’s going well so far, and although we’ve faced some challenges, we’ve achieved a lot in a short time,” she says.

“We care for adults from a range of ages, as well as those with additional needs, and people with dementia – pretty much anyone with a medical need.

“We’ve introduced a ‘you said, we did’ board on the ward and this has helped us to understand the thoughts and feelings of patients on the ward, from which we’ve already made some changes.

“Other changes we’ve made include adding a governance board, which displays our latest audit results, so everyone can visibly see the areas where we need to make improvements. For example, we’ve also been doing spot audit checks every week on peripheral venous catheters (PVC) and wrist band audits, which was an area we felt we needed to improve our practice.

“We’ve implemented a urinary care bundle, a quality improvement project that I led to help improve our trial without catheter (TWOC) compliance, as well as to reduce our catheter-associated urinary tract infections.

“Our aim in the future is to maintain our high standards of care, reduce or eliminate complaints, and maintain a happy working environment.”

Adeola Fidudusola is a senior healthcare assistant on the ward and her role mainly involves the general care of our patients, and making sure care plans around their feeding, mobility and personal care are followed.

“As a healthcare assistant, I’ll help to sure that our patients are comfortable, as although some of them are independent, others are not,” she says.

“We make sure that we look after them according to their care needs, and if we notice a patient is deteriorating or there’s a problem, we let the nurse in charge know.

“I love to sit down with my patients, especially if they enjoy talking, which can be really fun, getting to know them and their life stories.”

Agnieszka Smolinska, a student nurse on Exmoor ward, adds: “I’m here to learn from our nurses and other colleagues on the ward around how to look after patients, and how to assess them and prepare their care plan. I also follow the plans of doctors and specialist nurses.

“I find Exmoor ward a really nice and welcoming place to work and it’s generally a vibrant, pleasant environment.”

While on the ward, we also spoke to a few patients who were experiencing the care of our Exmoor ward colleagues first hand.

One patient on the ward said: “The staff here have been so good to me, and they’ve treated me so lovely – I can’t fault them at all.

“Lots of people criticise the NHS, but if you judged it solely against the care I’ve received on Exmoor ward, then it would have to be top class – I’m amazed, they’re all wonderful!”

Another patient who was in hospital with pneumonia, adds: “All the nurses, healthcare assistants, doctors and cleaners are fantastic, just really kind and they’ve looked after me really well.”

A third patient, who was in hospital with an infection on a heart valve and aneurysm in his leg, says: “They’ve really done alright with me on Exmoor ward, especially as I’m difficult to get with my injections, but to be fair they’ve managed it in the end, especially nurse Rachel.

“They’ve been really brilliant and I’m happy with what they’re doing with me, fair play to them, they’ve been good.”

Well done to all our colleagues on Exmoor ward - and to Katy and Jesse for their inspiring leadership.