Kevin Skilton is associate operations manager for Cancer. He oversees both the Cancer directorate and Trust Cancer wide services. Kevin joined the CUH family in 2003 and here he tells us more about his time at CUH.
What is your name and your role in our hospitals?
Hi, I'm Kevin Skilton and I am associate operations manager – Cancer – I oversee a group of Cancer services both within the Cancer Directorate and Trust Cancer Wide such as the Cancer Support Service, Cancer Directorate Quality Assurance Team, Cancer Directorate Governance, Cancer Patient Partnership Group (CPPG), Cancer Directorate Data/Information, and Cancer Projects to name but a few.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
It's multi-faceted really, on one hand it is the people I work with - I am lucky to directly manage a number of great people and have some great teams under me who do amazing work for our patients - both behind the scenes and directly with the patients.
I have always said working in the Cancer Directorate is being part of a family and that everyone is special and always going the extra mile for our patients
So the people are a very big part of what I enjoy most. On the other hand it is the patients – some of the services I manage are behind the scenes but that doesn’t make them any less important in the overall picture – it is some of this work that keeps both our patients and staff safe, and also the patient side of things in the Cancer Support Service is an amazing service and provides such amazing first hand support to the patient.
Tell us a bit about your CUH journey.
I originally joined the finance department in September 2003 as a budget liaison officer (A&C4) in the Income Team working with Mike Tapp. I learnt so much during my time here about how the NHS worked from the funding streams to how we bill and therefore how activity works. I also learnt how to use pivot tables and VLOOKUPS – something I use nearly every day! I decided however that I wanted more people contact and so moved to Radiotherapy.
Over the 20 years I have been at CUH I have been:
- Budget Liaison Office – Finance
- Admin Manager – Radiotherapy
- Business Manager – Radiotherapy
- Deputy Operations Manager – Radiotherapy
- Operational Head of Radiotherapy
- Project Manager for the Cancer Hospital
- Associate Operations Manager Cancer (Current)
Why you like working at CUH?
I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else really. It has to be the fact that I am involved in making a difference for our patients and supporting them through the journey of Cancer Diagnosis, Treatment and onwards (ending treatment and being followed up is not the end of the journey for our patients).
If I can do or change one thing that makes life easier or better for one of our patients then I am succeeding.
How did you come to work at CUH? Did you work elsewhere before joining the CUH team?
I was born and brought up down the road in Haverhill – although I now live in Fairfield (near Letchworth), Addenbrooke's was somewhere I knew and a large employer (not as large as it is now), it was close to Haverhill, I wanted to work in finance and a job in finance came up when I finished my degree - I applied and got the job (I remember sitting on the bridge doing my test looking down the road past A&E to the main roundabout thinking how big the site was although really it was quite small then. Before Addenbrooke's I was studying for my degree and so worked part time at Axa Insurance inputting the claims to the IT system (back then the claims were filled out on paper and needed to be transposed into the system), and when at Sixth Form I worked at Superdrug as a Saturday job.
Where did you train?
I am not clinical and so didn’t train as such, but after leaving Sixth Form in Haverhill I undertook a degree in Business Administration at West Suffolk College in Bury St Edmunds through its affiliation to Anglia Ruskin University. Through this I identified that I wanted to work in Finance and planned to become an accountant. However it gave me a great all round base knowledge from finance, business planning, employee relations that would give me the theory for my future roles.
What does a usual day look like for you?
I work both on and offsite, and no two days are ever the same. One day I could be reviewing and writing processes another I may be in meetings all day from one-to-one’s to Governance and project meetings.
Whilst I may not always have an office door anymore to be open, I try to be there for anyone in my teams or across the directorate and support them to ensure we are able to provide the best services we possibly can for our colleagues and teams.
Can you tell us about a case study/experience at CUH that really stands out to you
My experience of working at CUH over a long period is how much it has changed. When I started CUH was big but certainly not as big as it is now, no multistory car parks, no treatment centre, and payroll were in porta cabins where the Deakin Centre is and the 2020 vision showed the plans to expand the site and the hospital but seemed a lifetime away. Back when I started we use to have staff Christmas meals in the Concourse staff area with long tables running all the way down the middle with dinner served to us by the Directors who would dress up - one of the finance Directors was dressed as Elvis and Mary Archer who was Chair of the trust at the time joined in serving and dressed as Mrs Christmas. But that was a moment away from the pressure of the hospital which remain and increase every year.
How do you feel your role benefits our patients?
I oversee a variety of services and projects, some of these have direct patient impact such as the Cancer Support Service, they way-find and support our cancer patients on a daily basis and are an amazing team, other services such as Quality Assurance and Governance is about keeping our patients and employees safe and delivering the best care to our patients.
I have always maintained that as an non clinical role my place is to support and make the work of our clinical staff easier so they can focus on the patient and use their knowledge, training and skills to support and care for our patients.