Well we are now close to closing down for the two week Christmas break and although there will be more detail on the exact treatment statistics to follow early in 2020, we already know that we will have treated more Police Patients in 2019 than in previous years, continuing to go from strength to strength in terms of both numbers treated and the quality of the service that we provide. I will try not to get drawn into too much of a reflective blog at this time of the year as it is something that all of us naturally do within our own personal lives, however, I am satisfied that we are in a much stronger position than we were 12 months ago with even more to look forward to in 2020 and beyond.
We have finished the year with a flurry of visitors including some of the key personalities from the Police LGBTQI+ Network, Police Care UK and the Garda Siochana. We have recently run Wellbeing Weekends for two of our Forces and hosted a variety of other visitors to both of our Centres. In terms of our external engagement, the Donor Engagement team have continued the work and effort they have put in throughout the whole of the year with ongoing briefs and visits to new Student Officer groups and Retirement Seminars. I myself made some specific visits to Merseyside Police Federation, attended the Police Scotland Bravery Awards in Edinburgh which was both humbling and inspiring in equal measure, and took the opportunity to visit the new purpose built Defence National Recovery Centre (DNRC) in Loughborough which treats injured Military Veterans (for those familiar with Hedley Court it is the new Hedley).
The facilities at DNRC are quite outstanding, but it was reassuring from our perspective to hear that they were hugely impressed by what the PTC delivers through its Psychological Wellbeing Programme, and they wanted to find out more. We are rightly proud of what we do at the PTC and I am keen that we remain a learning organisation taking time to look at what other organisations are doing and where others deliver best practice. We take hold of these lessons, where appropriate adapt them for the PTC, and at all times seek to improve the level of care for our Patients going forward.
St George’s Police Children’s Trust, our other charity that we run from Harrogate (which supports the dependent children/young people of Police Officers who have died or been medically retired), has been discussed at a recent Trustees Board Meeting. It was decided that we would increase the amount of the Christmas Gift to beneficiaries by an additional £500 per child this year. The news to that effect will have already dropped into the Inboxes/Letterboxes of all our beneficiary families.
As a small note of caution, that will not be the case every year. The investments for SGPCT have performed better than expected this year therefore we are keen to share some of this extra dividend money with our beneficiaries who remain the most important individuals in the charity. That of course may not be the case in 2020 and beyond, but I think the answer this year is to enjoy the extra money. If we are able to do it again in the future, we will. We are always looking at how we might improve the support that we provide through SGPCT. I do know from some of the Thank You notes that we have already received, this extra benefit has gone down well.
Looking ahead to 2020, I am hoping that when I fast forward 12 months, I will look back on 2020 as the year of the “New Clinical Services Wing at Harrogate”. Moving the process forwards has been both tortuous and frustrating in equal measure, but I am confident that we have got on top of it and will actually start to see the new wing rise up from the ground in the first half of 2020. It remains something that we desperately need as evidenced by the growth in the waiting lists for the Wellbeing Programme, and something that I have to say still keeps me up at night wondering if there are going to be any more spanners thrown in the works !!
There is of course much else to look forward to next year, but for now, I will confine myself to thanking all of the PTC and SGPCT Trustees and Employees for their hard work and support in 2019. For those of you who will be at work on shift in 2020, my thanks extends to all of you. I hope you too get an opportunity to spend Christmas and the New Year period with family and friends and to have a well deserved break.
I look forward to seeing many of you in 2020, Stay safe all.
Merry Christmas and Best Wishes.
Patrick Cairns, CEO PTC
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