Dr Catherine Monaghan
Nominated by: Professor Jane Metcalf, Deputy Medical Director & Consultant Physician, North Tees & Hartlepool NHS Trust
In what way does the nominee inspire you?
Cath has worked at the Trust and in the region for over 20 years, as a doctor in training, specialty doctor and consultant. She has a 'can do' attitude which translates into every area of her professional life to enhance patient care. She is empathic and seeks out ways to address issues colleagues raise, such as work life balance problems and valuing contributions across the health care professions.
She is hugely flexible in meeting her commitments in acute and respiratory medicine and being clinical director for out of hospital care, despite being less than full time and having 3 young children. She is also lead for the local integrated care system for frailty and has developed, implemented and championed new pathways to improve care for patient and their families whilst reducing stranded patients and length of stay. Cath is a compassionate and excellent physician, she leads by example and ensures her colleagues are inspired, supported and challenged to always improve the care they provide.
Nominee's personal contribution to medical practice and impact on care
Cath has made a significant personal contribution to the care of both individual patients as an acute care and respiratory physician, but also to the overall pathways of care in two particular areas. Firstly, she was instrumental in setting up the Hospital at Home service for patients with chronic respiratory disease. This is a community based, multidisciplinary team with a patient centred approach to managing debilitating chronic respiratory conditions with proactive management of disease flare ups, achieving excellent patient outcomes both from quantitative (reduction in admissions and length of stay) and qualitative (patient acceptability and empowerment) viewpoints. It has been of particular benefit for patients in the Hartlepool are who have further to travel for inpatient care. Cath always emphasises the whole team’s input but she is the bedrock and responsible physician who empowers the team to keep patients at home, safely.
Secondly, she has pioneered work in frailty, now also taking the local lead for this work across the Tees Valley ICS. Within the trust she has developed and instigated a new, multidisciplinary, therapy led approach to identifying and assessing frail patients in the emergency department. This has led to rapid, safe, supported discharge and reductions in length of stay with co-ordinated discharge planning leading to significant (25%+) reductions in stranded patients and fantastic feedback from patients and carers. She is also working across the whole patient pathway to inreach into care homes using community staff to pre-empt and either avoid or speed up admissions. Additionally she has provided senior clinical time to support emergency care planning and enhance end of life care in the community to enable people at the end of life to achieve their preferred place of care with appropriate care and support, both physically and psychologically.
Her ability to work across staff groups, primary and secondary care and organisations such as local authorities, 3rd sector and other healthcare providers to achieve the best care for patients is well recognised and resulted in her being asked to lead across the locality. Her natural ebullience and empathy means that she is able to transcend complex system barriers through shared goals around compassionate holistic patient care.
In what way has the nominee shown their commitment to equality, diversity and inclusivity?
Cath embodies a commitment for equality and diversity in everything she does. She works across professions within the NHS, specifically valuing and recognising the contribution of each and every staff group. She works with and champions patients’ and carers’ views, including those from socially deprived groups and hard to reach parts of our community. She supports trainees from all backgrounds and in particular less than full time trainees and colleagues to reach their goals and work life balance.
She is well recognised as an excellent, fair and supportive supervisor, working with overseas graduates and our refugee doctors to support transition into the NHS. As an extension to this, Cath is the lead for the Inspirational Female Trainees group within the Trust, aiming to promote and support women in hospital medicine careers. She has worked as a non-career grade doctor as well as now as a consultant and champions their career development and promotes their worth.