Irene Barkby, director of nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals (NMAHP), is another of the senior managers who has joined NHS Lanarkshire within the past 12 months.

Irene said: “I look back at the past year with appreciation and pride.

“The NMAHP community and my corporate team have been extremely welcoming and supportive at a time of significant change within the organisation.

“The enthusiasm demonstrated towards being more ‘outcome-focused’ has been extremely encouraging and has made this job much easier than it might otherwise have been.

“There is a significant appetite for a renewed focus on the organisation’s values of quality, fairness, respect and working together. This has led to many achievements at an individual, team, department and site/locality level, all of which would make any leader justifiably proud to be part of such teams.

“Looking forward, I will be working with others to ‘refine processes’ within NHS Lanarkshire, enhancing the level of joined-up working and ensuring delivery of safe, effective and person-centred care, whilst embedding new reporting and governance structures associated with the health and social care partnerships.

“Through this, I believe, a more empowered workforce will be better able to provide assurances about the standards of care and services being delivered.”