Monday 30th March 2015 – 2.20pm – Claire Brown.
A paramedic from Birmingham is one of the first to graduate from a programme for aspiring NHS leaders.
Joshua Miller, who lives in Kingswinford, and works as a community paramedic in Oldbury, graduated from the NHS Leadership Academy’s Mary Seacole Programme last week on Monday 23rd March at a prestigious ceremony held in Birmingham Council House.
Mary Seacole was a Jamaican woman who overcame racial and sexual discrimination to become a pioneer of modern nursing. Mary pushed the frontiers of emergency care and worked tirelessly to bring care for frontline troops during the Crimean War; skilfully caring for soldiers during the deadliest outbreaks of cholera under open fire.
The 12-month postgraduate programme, wholly funded by the NHS Leadership Academy and delivered by the Open University Business School, is for people who are new in a leadership position or are aspiring to be a leader in the future.
Joshua said: “The NHS Leadership Academy funded a suite of programmes to develop leadership capability within the NHS after the Francis Report into Mid Staffordshire Trust highlighted problems in leadership.
“The Mary Seacole Programme aims to develop first-line leaders who recognise that targets are useful in benchmarking performance, but that information about a service can come from a range of sources, of which the most important are probably the views of patients and staff at its heart. I spoke to and surveyed a number of staff across the Trust about their experiences delivering care to cardiac arrest patients, and have begun passing this knowledge not only to our Trust but to other ambulance services around the country.
“I am proud to be part of the first cohort of Mary Seacole Programme graduates and am keen to put my theory into practice to improve patient care in the West Midlands.”
ENDS
Pictured: Josh with Joan Myers OBE, keynote speaker at graduation ceremony.