We were delighted to welcome Steve Race, MP for Exeter, to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital (Wonford) on Thursday 24 July.

Steve met with Chief Executive Officer Sam Higginson, Chair Shan Morgan, and Chief Medical Officer Adrian Harris, who gave him an overview of our strengths and opportunities as a Trust, as well as talking to him about some of our key challenges and priorities.

He visited our emergency department, and learned about how the recent redevelopment of the unit and new children’s area has transformed care for the 100,000 patients who visit us each year.

Finally, he spent some time learning about our Acute Hospital at Home, and how it’s helping patients across the Trust to recover at home with the right support and monitoring. The team were a finalist in this year’s Health Service Journal digital awards, and demonstrate how we are already making progress against the national 10 Year Plan, both in moving from analogue to digital, and in providing more care away from the acute hospital in the community setting.

On leaving, Steve told us he had been impressed by the great teams he had seen all over the hospital. He told us the work to our emergency department and the child friendly area were fantastic, and the Acute Hospital at Home was ‘where the NHS needs to be going.’

A huge thank you to everybody involved in the visit, particularly to Meghan O’Neill, Clinical Nurse Manager, who led the tour around the emergency department, and Carlie Hopper, Lead Nurse for Acute Hospital at Home, who are both pictured alongside Sam, Shan and Steve.