Our mission, vision and values

Oncology Matron, Sarah Branch, smiling at the camera

Our mission

Together we deliver compassionate, safe care everyday.

Our vision

To provide nationally celebrated, community focused health and care

Our values

Caring together 

For our staff, caring for our patients is often about more than just ensuring the best clinical outcomes but also the best possible experience. 

People suffering from dementia can be prone to wander, something which staff on our Older People's Unit are acutely aware of. They worked with colleagues to make all the doors leading off the ward look like bookshelves. When patients approach the doors now, they simply turn and walk the other way, keeping them safe and within the ward area. 

The team has also had created a 'bus stop' and 'train station' with seats where patients can sit to chat together; and they are in the process of shaping a park area too. 

These small initiatives have significantly improved the experience that these vulnerable patients have and are a good example of how our staff are embracing caring together

Learning together 

In February, we successfully hosted the first annual Health and Social Care Careers Open Evening for local secondary school students and their parents. 

The event, held in partnership with Health Education England, Surrey and Borders and Surrey County Council, saw staff from across the Trust hosting career stalls to talk about their roles. They invited students to participate in 'have a go' clinical simulation activities and gave guided tours of the simulation site, the Cancer Centre and theatre areas. 

Our staff are always seeking out modern technologies, treatments and opportunities for medical advancement. We have an active research, development and innovation department here with many of our clinicians taking part in new studies and last year we recruited 1716 patients to these studies. We currently have 446 trials hosted at the Trust. 

Learning together, internally and with healthcare and academic partners, and sharing information with our community is an integral part of how we work in this organisation. 

Continuously improving 

We are passionate about continuously improving. In our emergency department staff recognised that many of the patients they were seeing in the department were frail and elderly. So, they worked with our specialist geriatric team to formulate a specific pathway for this group of vulnerable patients. This helps us to ensure that they are receiving the most appropriate treatment in the best place for them, often resulting in an earlier discharge from hospital than would previously have been possible. 

In October, we launched a campaign to help patients get up, get dressed and feel their best; encouraging our patients to get out of their pyjamas and into their everyday clothes which helps speed up their recovery and rehabilitation. 

Continuously improving also means learning from when we could have done things better. We use multi-disciplinary teams who work together to thoroughly investigate when alternative actions could have resulted in a better outcome. Taking this approach and sharing what we have learned is vital to ensuring the best care.

Excelling together 

We are immensely proud of our five nursing teams who were recognised for their innovation and excellent care after being shortlisted for five top awards by the Nursing Times Awards 2017. 

Nursing staff from across Royal Surrey were named as finalists in the following categories: team of the year, surgical nursing, technology and data in nursing, emergency and critical care and children and adolescent services.

The teams were nominated by their colleagues, who praised them for ‘regularly going above and beyond for their patients’ and their in-depth ‘knowledge and understanding.’ At our annual staff awards, breast surgeon Tracey Irvine who transformed the cancer journey of a Paralympic gold medallist and world single scull champion was recognised as Royal Surrey Star. Breast cancer patient Helene Raynsford credited oncoplastic breast surgeon Tracey Irvine with saving her life and helping her to maintain her independence.

Helene said “My cancer journey was moving in a pre-defined direction along a conveyer belt”.

“However, from my first appointment with Miss Irvine I came off that conveyor belt.”