Paul Brooks Awarded MBE
Paul Brooks, Director of Patient Experience, Estates and Facilities at UHDB, has been awarded an MBE for his services to Healthcare Leadership.
Paul has been integral to the development of the Trust, from leading the intergenerational care programme, the development of volunteers and support of sustainability exploration, through to revamping sites at speed, increasing critical care capacity, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
We are overjoyed that Paul’s notable contributions to healthcare are being acknowledged in the Queen’s New Year Honours list. His dedication to the care and experience of our patients and staff is recognised throughout the Trust and beyond. He is universally regarded as an inspirational leader and known for promoting positive and inclusive experience.
His innovative ways of working have been pivotal in reducing C. difficile rates within the Trust, with ‘The Derby Door’ having a major impact in managing the Covid-19 cross-contamination. Innovations extend to his development of Air Arts, a charity using art to create a calm and welcoming environment for all accessing our sites, modernising the ways in which we can enhance recovery for patients at UHDB.
Paul joined the NHS as an apprentice Plumber at the age of 16 and has since accumulated 35 years’ service in the NHS.
Cathy Winfield, Director of Patient Experience and Chief Nurse, said: “I am hugely proud of Paul as both a colleague and a friend, his contribution to patients, the health service and developing his colleagues is an absolute inspiration. Whatever Paul does he places his heart and soul into. He so thoroughly deserves this award.”
Gavin Boyle, Chief Executive, said: “Paul has had an immeasurable impact on the way our Trust looks and feels today. When Royal Derby Hospital was built in 2009, Paul had a hand in influencing every aspect of its design, with his facilities experience helping to create a positive and welcoming environment for staff and patients alike. This impact can now be felt all across our hospitals, with a lot of these design principles, such as easy-to-read signage, calming colour choices and dementia friendly environments being introduced to all our sites.
“This year has been extremely challenging but, through it all, our hospitals have continued to be there for our communities, and Paul has played an absolutely vital role in this. From quickly making our hospitals safe throughout the pandemic, to keeping our teams and patients fed and watered and our hospitals clean, he has completely devoted himself to the job
“He developed our arts charity Air Arts to help combat stress and increase social interaction in our hospitals, while ‘The Derby Door’, an inflatable partition which can be adapted to create flexible isolation facilities which he designed and has been an important part of our infection control measures for a number of years, particularly so during the current pandemic.
“Paul’s warm demeanour, incredible leadership and constant can-do attitude really epitomise all of the values that we hold dearly at UHDB, so I’m absolutely delighted to see that his fantastic contribution to the NHS has now been recognised in this way.”