Introducing Anne Currie: Lindsey Lodge’s New Chief Executive
Introducing Anne Currie: Lindsey Lodge’s New Chief Executive
Lindsey Lodge Hospice has welcomed Anne Currie as its new Chief Executive, succeeding Karen Griffiths after her nine years of dedicated service. Anne brings extensive experience from the hospice sector, having previously served as Head of Operations for Marie Curie North West and Chief Executive of Forest Holme Hospice.
To introduce Anne to the community, long-serving volunteer Jill Perry conducted an interview, exploring her background and aspirations for Lindsey Lodge. Here’s a summary of their conversation. The full interview can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/–uTp1TllRE
Jill Hello, Anne. I wonder if you could just give us a brief summary of your history and how you started in the hospice sector. Were you a nurse?
Anne I’d love to say I was a nurse Jill, my big sisters a nurse and I’m not a nurse. The reason I’m working in the hospice sector is my dad died when I was 20, and my big sister and my mum nursed him at home. At the time I was at university to unfortunately it wasn’t something I could help with. This is my small way of trying to give something back.
Jill So have you worked in a hospice before then or anywhere else?
Anne I have, I had nine wonderful years down in Dorset at a hospice called Forest Holme, which was part of Poole Hospital. And that gave me a fantastic grounding and a lot of learning and experience within hospice care. I then moved to Liverpool and was in the Marie Curie Hospice in Liverpool, for 18 months, and again a very different hospice and then walked in through the doors of Lindsey Lodge.
Jill What has been your proudest moment so far in your career wise?
Anne It’s a really difficult question. I think something that I look back on that was exceptional to all of us was Covid and actually trying to take an organisation through Covid. During that time I was working at the hospice down in Dorset. It was so exceptional to all of us; patients, family members of staff, volunteers, supporters. The board of trustees at the time just said do what you need to do to get the organisation through Covid and actually, we bonded really tightly as a team across the board and came out of it in a much stronger position than actually when we went into it. I wouldn’t like to relive it and there were a lot of lessons we learnt from it. You saw the very best in people, but also you saw some really awful situations as well, which was very hard. So I think Jill probably, if I look back that’s probably the proudest thing because to have got through that.
Jill So what attracted you to come up here to Lindsey Lodge?
Anne When I saw the advert, I don’t know, it was just the way it was written. When I did a bit of homework, I thought, that looks like a really nice fit for myself. When I came for my first interview and walked through the doors, I thought, this is me. I was then lucky enough to come back for the second interview, and I kind of thought to myself, I’ll be really disappointed if I don’t get the job. And very fortunately, I’ve been lucky enough to get it. So far, it’s everything that I thought it would be.
Jill What is your vision for Lindsey Lodge?
Anne I think to build on the work that Karen and the team have done over the last nine years. It’s a very it’s a lovely position to walk into. I think obviously I don’t know the area, so I’d like to get to know the area as well. It’s to ensure that the standard of care is maintained and that the right people are getting the right care at the right time in a place, that’s necessary for them. What really matters to me is doing the very best for patients and their families and what matters to them. It can be very small things that make a big difference to somebody’s quality of life. So I think working within, the wider health and social care system in North Lincolnshire, I think is really important. We’re going to probably have quite a challenging couple of years ahead. So I think just spending a bit of time with the team and understanding the local area and then ask me again in a couple of months’ time.
Jill What challenges do you think you will face?
Anne It’s challenges throughout hospice care that’s not just Lindsey Lodge. Hospices up and down the United Kingdom are struggling with the funding of hospice care. Something that I really struggle with is the fact that maternity care isn’t funded by people running marathons or having a cake sales. So actually, why should leaving the world be funded any differently? So I think a part of my job and the wider team’s job is how we can ensure that we get enough money into end of life care and that that will be challenging.
We’ve got a lot more people living to an older age with a lot more life limiting, aspects to disease. So the demand on services is getting a lot higher as well. The assisted dying bill that is coming into the United Kingdom, the conversation round about that, in one way, it’s really healthy because it gets people to talk about death and dying, which were not very good at. On the flip side. What is that? What potentially could that look like in the future? I think there’s a lot of anxiety around about what the what the bill might end up as.
Jill So what are you looking forward to getting stuck into first?
Anne I think for me personally; it’s getting to know people. So getting to know staff, volunteers, patients, families and our supporters and also partners that we work with in the local area. I think that’s number one on my to do list. The challenges will come, so I’m going to enjoy the time just now. I want to make sure that Lindsey Lodge is going to be here for the next ten, 20, 30 years to come.
To listen to this interview on our podcast platform visit https://open.acast.com/public/streams/64f98ded460ddd0011227243/episodes/67ed5b9d02e789100f1a7eb0.mp3 or search ‘Lindsey Lodge A diary of a hospice’
