Santa came early for Oldham A&E worker Julie

Julie Lowe

Santa certainly did come early with an extra special present for an NHS employee of The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.

Julie Lowe, who manages the receptionists working in the Accident and Emergency department at The Royal Oldham Hospital, had never won anything more than £10 on the National Lottery. That was until she spent £2 on a Trust staff raffle ticket for the first Listening into Action raffle, with the strap line ‘A Car 4 Christmas.’

The draw was held on 14 December and Julie was informed by telephone that she was the lucky winner and the proud owner of a new Toyota Aygo from RRG Toyota in Bury. As you might imagine there were screams of delight from the department as the news of Julie’s success spread.

When Julie drove to work for the first time in her car she said: “I have come to work in my new car today and it is wonderful. I am still in shock as you think it will never happen to you. I feel it has boosted staff morale Trust wide as a lot of people know who I am so it seems real.”

Vanessa Kenny, a nurse practitioner at The Royal Oldham Hospital, who sold the winning ticket said: “It is really nice to know that all my hard work of selling the raffle tickets across the Oldham site of Pennine Acute Trust has paid off, with the winner being in my own department!”

Julie Owen, Listening into Action Lead for the Trust commented: “Julie was overjoyed at winning the car after buying just one ticket – it was a fantastic experience for me to be able to take her to pick up her new car and to see her drive it away.”

After all the excitement of the Christmas raffle, staff are now looking forward to the next Listening into Action raffle ‘Escape for Easter!’

Listening into Action (LiA) is a new staff engagement initiative that the Pennine Acute Trust, along with a number of other NHS Trusts across the country, has committed to. LiA is about a new way of tackling improvements and about changing the way things happen within the Trust by empowering staff who know the most about their job, to facilitate those changes and improvements for patients. The initiative is a unique and powerful approach to putting staff back in the driving seat.