St. John’s looking to the future as it seeks to expand with new strategy
Limerick’s oldest hospital, St. John’s, is looking to the future with a new long-term strategy aimed at deepening its impact on the people of the city and wider Mid-West region.
Nine years short of its 250th year, St. John’s is setting out on developing a strategy that will see it play a key role in meeting the changing needs of the patient population in areas such as chronic disease management and diabetes.
The 89-bed acute public voluntary hospital – a registered charity – with an outstanding reputation for its sense of care and warmth has embarked on a listening process with staff, GPs and the wider public to help determine its direction.
The strategy is aimed at not alone looking at how the hospital can meet the rapidly changing needs of the public, including through expansion of its services, but also address challenges such as the lack of space and need of modernisation, which are significantly constraining progress.
Said hospital CEO Emer Martin, “The striking thing for me since I took up the post here just 18 months ago is the incredible togetherness amongst the staff, which translates into and reflects the high quality of patient care. No one wants to be in hospital, of course, and while there are always exceptions, people tend to leave here with sense that they not only got expert medical care but it was delivered with a deep sense of compassion. That’s hugely important to us.
“Our staff is our greatest asset. We pride ourselves on the quality of our work, on the expertise of our staff and on our compassion. What we now want to do is to broaden our specialities so that we can bring this to more people in need of medical care than ever before as we continue to work in partnership with the UHL Group and the community. We’ve a lot to do to get there, not least with capital development and financial constraints, but we have a super model here and know the difference we can make.”
Regarding the new strategy, she said: “We are ruling nothing in or out. What we do know is that we want to do more, want to impact more lives. But the first thing we’ve done is consult with our staff, ask them for their input. We are now going outside the hospital, to our wider stakeholders, such as GPs and, indeed, the general public. We want the people to have their say, to tell us what they would like to see from St. John’s.
“By the time we finishing that listening process, we will have received a really accurate review of where we are with the public and what it wants from us in the future.”
