North West Anglia Trust chairman Rob Hughes, from Barnack, reflects on the challenges and lessons faced as his nine-year term comes to an end
“It’s a job that you have to be passionate about and it can be quite consuming. It is three days a week, but you’re thinking about it seven days a week.”
When Rob Hughes wakes up at his Barnack home on April 1 it will be the first time in nine years that a share of responsibility for Stamford Hospital will no longer be his.
On March 31, Rob will step down as chairman of the North West Anglia NHS Trust, which also oversees Peterborough City Hospital and Hinchingbrooke.
It will mark the end of his third three-year term - the maximum timespan afforded the role - as he hands over the reins to Professor Steve Barnett.
“After that length of time it really is time to go because you need some fresh perspective,” he admitted.
“I’m really pleased that Professor Barnett will continue to build on what I started - you can never fully finish things in the health service.”
It is one of many lessons learned for Rob since accepting an invitation to lead the Trust’s board in 2013.
Managing the NHS, one of the largest public sector organisations in the world, must feel like a gigantic exercise in fire fighting while simultaneously keeping all of the plates spinning and the pots warm.
And that's before the everyday pressures were engulfed by covid.
Rob came into the role with plenty of boardroom experience within a massive global company as managing director of Mars UK's Food Division.
But the scale of the task ahead still surprised.
“I was able to transfer the skills I had learnt from running a large business,” he said.
“But it was much more difficult than I thought it was going to be because it’s such a challenging and complex environment.
“There are so many partners and stakeholders.”
Rob’s route to the NHS was born out of personal tragedy when his daughter Anna passed away after a 15-month battle with a brain tumour.
Anna died four months short of her fourth birthday.
Rob and wife Carole formed Anna’s Hope, a children's brain tumour charity which is still helping children and their families 16 years later.
“Through that I found myself representing parents of children with brain tumours, trauma, and epilepsy in a health service review of children’s neurosurgery in England and Wales,” he explained.
“I found myself in rooms with healthcare professionals and senior figures to work out what to do.
“I joined in 2013 when the Trust was in some financial difficulty down to the building of a new hospital so I came in at quite a challenging time.”
As well as getting the books back on an even keel, the first term was dominated by preparing to bring Hinchingbrooke into the Trust in 2017 and bringing more than 7,000 staff together.
“Healthcare works best when the whole system around the hospitals is working in partnership,” he said.
“At the time that really wasn’t the way it was working so it needed lots of communication, engagement and involvement to make sure we were serving the public and patients.
“That is who we are here for, not the organisation.”
Rob’s pursuit of a closer-knit care system was part of his final challenge as the Trust were asked to create a new clinical strategy to tie in with the national NHS Long Term Plan.
Last week, a vision for Stamford Hospital was set out, with integrated care at its heart.
“I look back with a mixture of achievement and an element of frustration because I would like to have done more,” he said.
“But with all of the many challenges we’ve faced, we’ve done a pretty good job.
“We now have a clearer strategy, the organisation is more patient-focussed than it was, and we have the stepping stones in place to develop more integrated working.
“But there is clear disappointment, with a small ‘d’, that there is still so much work to do.”
More may have been achieved without the diversion of a once-in a century global pandemic.
“It has been a great learning curve for all of us - for the organisation and the public,” Rob admitted.
“As a board we tried to make sure we didn’t get in the way, but were clear of what our expectations were and to make sure we could get more help and more resources.
“For staff it has been much more challenging. For many the pandemic has taken its toll on their wellbeing so we've done the best we can to support them - and that is ongoing."
He added: “We had to deal with more sickness among staff. That has been an enormous challenge and sadly we couldn’t offer the service to a level we would ideally like to offer.
“I know the experience of many patients will not have been a good one because of covid and I would like to apologise for that while also recognising the challenging circumstances our staff had to deal with.”
The end of this chapter will bring more time for family, but also for his roles as chairman of Anna’s Hope and trustee of national charity Brain Tumour Research.
For most of us, the chance to step away from the NHS pressure cooker would be a relief, particularly after the last two years.
Yet if another door swings open, Rob admits he may have to take a peek through it.
“What I have learned is that the health service is a long journey and what I have done is stick with it,” he reflected.
“You have to keep at it - you can’t become disheartened.
“There are lots of things that can go wrong in such a very challenging environment and you have to learn from those.
“But equally we can learn so much from the many positive things that we do.”
