A Derbyshire nurse – with more than 30 years of experience in nursing and senior leadership roles – is set to join Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust as its new Chief Nurse.

The Board of Directors will welcome Krishna Kallianpur in the autumn, when she will transfer from her current role (covering maternity leave) as Interim Chief Nurse at the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust.

Krishna is well-respected by colleagues across the Derbyshire health and social care system – and she has played a pivotal role throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting the incident response and working with front-line with colleagues to understand their challenges, anxieties and fears.

Starting out as a staff nurse in 1987, she developed her nursing and senior leadership career at the former Derby City Hospital, Queens Hospital in Burton and at Royal Derby Hospitals. She describes herself as ‘passionate about nursing, patient safety and the health and wellbeing of staff’.

She comments: “I am absolutely delighted to be offered this prestigious, exciting and challenging role.  I am looking forward to working with everyone to support and lead improvement.  I really believe that exploring different ways of working, growing your own talent and supporting practice development enhances patient care.  With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to be an operational challenge, we will need to continue to partner with others to transform how we look after our patients, our staff and the people in our communities.  It will be a privilege to do this at Chesterfield Royal, to make sure we provide exceptional care and workplaces.”

The Chief Nurse is responsible for the Trust’s 1800 nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals, working alongside the Medical Director to lead clinical performance, clinical governance, quality of patient care and experience.

Angie Smithson, Chief Executive says: “We are so pleased that Krishna is joining us.  She embodies the Trust’s values and I know she will absolutely want to make sure that we do all we can to ensure that every patient has safe, effective and personal care.  As an existing leader in our ‘Derbyshire system’, she knows our communities and our partners well – and I am sure she will thrive in her first executive director role, learning from her recent experiences in Derby where she is admired as ‘as an exemplary professional leader’.”

Krishna is replacing the Trust’s current Director of Nursing, Lynn Andrews, who is retiring after 40 years serving the NHS, taking the hospital from its former Care Quality Commission rating of ‘requires improvement’ to one of ‘good’ for the last four years.  Over the summer, Deputy Chief Nurse Sarah Ward will take up the ‘acting’ position until Krishna’s notice period at Derby is complete.

“This is a really exciting time for our nursing, midwifery and allied health professional teams,” continues Angie. “They are all determined to build on our existing platform of success.  With both Krishna and Sarah leading them I know we will realise more improvement, achieving even higher standards of care and enhanced patient and staff experience.  Recovering and restoring our services and learning to live and work alongside COVID-19 presents some real challenges for the NHS and I am confident they will both relish the opportunity to address those challenges.”

Chesterfield Royal Hospital supports the marketing and economic growth of the town through Chesterfield Champions, a network of over 180 organisations across Chesterfield and North Derbyshire.

Angie Angie Smithson, Chief Executive of Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust also sits on the Board of Destination Chesterfield.

Chesterfield-based care provider, Heathcotes Group, has experienced a major surge in demand for jobs in the sector following a record month of applications for support worker positions nationwide.

The company’s total applications for June were up 81% on the previous month and over 100% above its monthly average. Currently recruiting for roles across 72 residential services in support of adults with learning disabilities and mental health needs, Heathcotes is receiving an increasing number of applications from candidates switching from other sectors such as retail, leisure, tourism and hospitality.

Heathcotes Head of Recruitment, Colin Ramwell, said: “The Covid-19 crisis has created a great deal of uncertainty surrounding employment and our recruitment team has received a gradual increase in applications since March, but we saw a huge spike in June. It could be related to employers in certain sectors making difficult decisions about their staff as the government furlough scheme is phased out between now and October.”

“In the short to medium term, we may see a shift in the composition of the UK’s workforce, with a higher percentage of people employed in sectors, like social care, that can offer job security. Employment in care can accommodate people making a change mid-career as the training and qualifications are usually provided and funded by the employer.”

“An Influx of applications is good news for care providers, but processing them has become more of a challenge. We are observing enhanced safety requirements, so initial interviews are carried out via Zoom. Although we may see a sustained increase in applicants, it remains vital for care providers to identify the right candidate profile within these numbers – someone with a caring, compassionate nature, a genuine interest in our profession  and a desire to have a positive impact of the lives on the people we support.”

Heathcotes believes that another consequence of the pandemic is a more positive perception of care work. The company sees this as another significant factor in attracting greater numbers to the sector.

Mr Ramwell said: “There is now a much greater appreciation of social care’s vital role in society and its value as a profession that makes a real difference to people’s lives. Coronavirus has put enormous pressure on social care, but I know that Heathcotes staff have met the challenge with incredible energy, skill and commitment, as well as impressive creativity in finding ways to help our service users to cope, stay safe and stay engaged during lockdown. We are hugely proud of our service teams and I’m sure that many other care providers feel the same about their workforce.”

Click here to find out more about Heathcotes Group

Heathcotes Group supports the marketing and economic growth of the town through Chesterfield Champions, a network of over 180 organisations across Chesterfield and North Derbyshire.

D2N2 has formally announced the appointment of five new board members.

The LEP board brings together leaders from across the public, private, and education sectors who advise on key strategic decisions and use their knowledge and expertise to support D2N2 in achieving its ambitions for Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham, and Nottinghamshire.

The new Board members bring a wealth of experience and expertise across a range of disciplines including automotive, manufacturing, Further Education (FE), Higher Education (HE), and the Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector.

Tim Freeman and James Brand join as private sector representatives. Tim Freeman is the Deputy Managing Director of Toyota Manufacturing (UK), based in South Derbyshire whilst James Brand (pictured below) is Managing Director of United Cast Bar based in Chesterfield.

Andrew Cropley, Principal at West Notts College in Mansfield will become the Board’s new representative for Further Education whilst Professor Shearer West, Vice Chancellor of the University of Nottingham will represent the region’s Higher Education providers.

Joining the board as the new Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) representative will be Michele Farmer, Director at the Princes Trust.

D2N2 Interim Chair David Williams said of the appointments: “On behalf of everyone at D2N2, I’d like to welcome Andrew, Shearer, Michele, Tim, and James to the board. Our new appointments have a real breadth of experience which will be essential as we help navigate the challenging environment our economy now finds itself in.”

“I would also like to formally record my thanks on behalf of all the board and staff to the outgoing board members who have each contributed significant time and energy in furthering our ambitions and have been strong advocates and champions for the region and its potential.”

All five appointees will formally join the board in September.

A total of 10,000 protective facemasks have been donated to the University of Derby nursing and healthcare students, to help replace the stocks which were given to local hospitals at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Thousands of items of personal protective equipment (PPE), which would have been used by students, were delivered by University staff to the Royal Derby Hospital and Chesterfield Royal Hospital in March and April. Many of the nursing and healthcare students are based at the University’s St Helena Campus in Chesterfield.

Now, one of the University’s overseas partner institutions, Hunan University of Technology, in China, has helped to replenish supplies in Derby by sending the consignment of facemasks.

Dr Paula Holt, Pro Vice Chancellor Dean of the College of Health and Social Care, said: “This is an extremely generous gesture from our colleagues in Hunan, who were aware that we had supplied our PPE to local hospitals. It will help our students during their training, much more of which will be on campus in the coming months, while our NHS partners focus on managing COVID-19 in our hospitals.

“The donation also underlines the value of international co-operation between higher education institutions, and we look forward to a time when we are able to welcome representatives from Hunan to Derby to thank them personally.”

Hunan University of Technology, based in the Hubei Province of China, became one of Derby’s partner universities in 2018. Since then it has worked closely with the University of Derby on student exchange, student progression and teacher training.

The facemask donation was organised by the university’s Chancellor, Professor Yang Liu and his senior management team.

Professor Liu said: “Our hearts are with everyone at Derby, and we hope that all of our friends and colleagues at the University stay safe.”

The University of Derby supports the marketing and economic growth of the town through Chesterfield Champions, a network of over 180 organisations across Chesterfield and North Derbyshire.

Click here to find out more about the University of Derby’s Chesterfield campus

Professor Yang Liu

Chesterfield’s Robinson Packaging Company is providing three local towns with brand new defibrillators for use by both the ambulance service and the general public.

Installed at the company’s factories in Kirkby, Stanton and Chesterfield as part of increasing investment in health and safety for the business, Managing Director Steve Haley decided to fit them outside the buildings so the general public can also use them.

Steve said: “We listened to our staff suggestions and are delighted to be able to offer these valuable lifesaving defibrillators to our local towns – we work closely with our communities and it is great to be able to invest in the safety of our employees both at work and in the towns where they live.”

Bought from St John Ambulance, the defibrillators are registered on The Circuit website, in conjunction with the local East Midlands Ambulance service.

Local paramedics have full access to these units as the locations and access codes are supplied automatically into their system. The local public also have access through calling 999/112 and requesting the unit opening code.

All Robinson’s staff members can access these units and first aiders will be given instructions and training on using the defibrillator.