Jaime Dean, senior sister, Medical Acute Dependency Unit (MADU)

A patient was so impressed with the care they received in Frimley Park’s Medical Acute Dependency Unit (MADU) they nominated the senior sister for a Values into Practice (ViP) Award.

Jaime Dean joined the Trust in 2013 and within four years her ‘can-do’ attitude and strong leadership skills saw her promoted to senior sister of MADU.

During the last few months of Covid, Jaime’s team has grown from 35 to almost 50 staff, providing care to hundreds of patients requiring enhanced monitoring and intervention. The expansion of MADU more than doubled bed capacity and Jaime had to ensure the welfare and continued education of her staff (including those redeployed to MADU) met the ever-changing needs of the patients.

The ViP Award recognised the outstanding care Jaime and her team provided to patients, while ensuring the safety and wellbeing of her staff, many of whom had their own Covid fears. Jaime supported staff by leading from the front and looking after patients while wearing full PPE, and ensuring staff received training and had the equipment required to provide care to a challenging cohort of patients.

Jaime said: “We treated 235 patients in the first 12 weeks which is completely unprecedented for us, but all of our staff have been amazing. We had to be very flexible with with the way we worked, changing to an ITU-style of zone leadership with three teams working around the clock, as we still had our normal level of non-Covid patients to look after.

“Our biggest achievement was the amount of patients we managed to discharge safely, being able to provide our same excellent level of care with redeployed and retrained staff. We naturally become emotionally invested in patients and with Covid we weren’t able to have a therapeutic relationship with the families, so it is very touching that one of those patients nominated me for an award.” 

Jaime’s good humour and leadership has shone through and she has done everything in her power to keep staff spirits up. Little touches such as giving out ice lollies to ‘pub-style’ quizzes during down times are testament to her motivational approach.

“I am delighted to be given the ViP Award. However it is thanks to the support I’ve had from the team, particularly from my matron, Philippa, and nurse consultant, Ian. They have been inspirational and if I am considered to be successful it’s because I’ve learnt how to do it from them.”