We are excited to shine the spotlight on one of our foundation alumni organisations, Church Street Medical.

Church Street, part of the Inspire Healthcare group, achieved the award in February of 2023, but unfortunately couldn’t attend our awards evening in December. So, Tom, The Healthy Workplace Award Programme Lead, went up to the surgery to meet the team and present them with their award.

In doing so, he met Kirsty White, operations manager at Inspire, and Clare Barnfield, Church Street Practice Manager, who both provided some fascinating insights into their journey through the award and its impact.

Both Kirsty and Clare highlighted how the Healthy Workplace Award had made them step back and reconsider their approach to staff wellbeing. Resultantly, they have initiated numerous strategies and methods to improve this, such as: facilitating all their managers to become mental health first aid trained, implementing daily coffee catch-ups between colleagues to help foster a sense of community and team spirit, and holding a group-wide quarterly off-site day which wellbeing activities are built into.

Most impressively, however, they detailed how they have taken steps to understand the needs and wants of Church Street Employees through regular surveys, and how they are acting on the findings. They are currently in the process of setting up an internal well-being email, which will allow staff to reach out to one of the practice doctors for help and advice on a range of topics. In many ways, they are turning their patient support to face inward to practice staff.

In terms of impact, both Kirsty and Clare agreed wholeheartedly in saying they felt the award helps them demonstrate to both current and prospective staff that they really do value the wellbeing of their employees and are actively working at continually improving this.

We are so excited to have Church Street as part of the ever-growing community of foundation-level accredited organisations in Gloucestershire and look forward to supporting them in the next steps of their journey.

We are so grateful to Kirsty and Clare for taking time out of their day to share their story and hope it has inspired you to take the next step on your journey. 

Don’t just read about the successes of others, though. Make them your own. Sign up today at workplaces@hlsglos.org.