Working with Pro-Noctis as a performance partner, The South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has become one of the first acute hospital trusts in England to achieve an improved rating from the CQC since the start of the covid-19 pandemic.

The trust, which employs around 9,000 staff and provides services for more than 1.5 million people, has moved from ‘requires improvement’ to being rated ‘good’ overall.

The CQC assessed performance within critical care services, urgent and emergency care, medical wards, and surgery. It also looked at how well-led the trust was overall.

Following their 2019 inspection grading, the South Tees NHS Trust had been determined to better empower their staff, leaders, and clinicians in making important decisions that impact all areas of the organisation, including patient care and service delivery.

Partnering with the South Tees Research, Innovation and Education department (STRIVE), Pro-Noctis and South Tees NHS Trust worked together to develop the leadership and performance culture through bespoke training programmes implemented across the organisation.

Their engagement with our training programmes was a difference-maker, and we look forward to continuing the journey with them throughout 2023 and beyond.

The programmes were focused on making individuals feel valued, boosting individual and team performance, enhancing a growth mindset across departments, and supporting the NHS’ development of compassionate and conscious leaders.

Spanning nearly three years, the training included learning for the trust’s educational staff, team development days, a high-performance culture seminar, and access to 1:1 support.

Pro-Noctis also created a custom version of their award-winning Human Performance Practitioner course for the Trust’s senior leaders. This is a unique 5-day programme offering leadership and management the thinking space to reflect on their own performance, and to plan and implement change in their areas whilst considering how they (and their teams) best perform. This created the foundation for all additional training and was well-received by the trust’s leadership.

The Trust’s trainers worked with Pro-Noctis to introduce a ‘Human Factors’ programme. Designed to fit the requirements of multiple departments, this work centred on the human factors in patient safety and ingraining the practices and culture of performing safely as an individual within a team and within the trust.

Following the success of this, the trust fully adopted these principles and created their own Human Factors team, who have since shortlisted for a national award.

In the latest inspection, the CQC reported that the leadership team were “strong and focused,” ran services well, understood the issues faced and made plans to tackle them, and were visible and approachable. The Human Factors programmes to develop the trust’s leadership and performance culture were rewarded by the CQC as an ‘Outstanding Practice,’ recognising the trust’s efforts to ‘nurture compassionate leadership.’

Phil Kelly, Founder and Managing Director of Pro-Noctis said: “We are delighted to support the team at South Tees in their development. To think that the change in their grading has taken place through a global pandemic where the NHS resources were stretched like never before is not to be underestimated.

“The trust’s leadership rightly deserve praise, but I must highlight the incredible work conducted by STRIVE. They have shown unwavering commitment to improvement and modelled the sound leadership behaviours you would expect of a high performing team. Their engagement with our training programmes was a difference-maker, and we look forward to continuing the journey with them throughout 2023 and beyond”.

Chief executive for the South Tees NHS Trust, Sue Page, said: “I am incredibly proud of all our staff… we will continue to build on this progress for our fantastic patients and service users in the years to come.

“We will not be resting on our laurels. There is still lots more work to do, and we are committed to working tirelessly to carry on raising our standards in collaboration with our fantastic partners and communities as we continue to recover together from the huge effects of the pandemic.”

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