Chief Scientific Adviser praises North Cumbria NHS trust

Directors of North Cumbria Integrated Care held their latest meeting on Wednesday hearing of the successful visit from Lucy Chappell, CEO of the National Institute for Health Research and Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health.

Professor Jonathan Weber said: "The Government's Chief Scientific Adviser came on Friday, so in her letter back to us, she commented on leadership of NCIC and Trudie on you're staying for her entire visit, the first chief exec in her experience to ever do so."

Professor Jonathan Weber CBE and Professor Sophie Day, Co-Directors of the Pears Cumbria School of Medicine Research Hub. (Image: PCSM)

He said: "The other point she made in her feedback letter was that we had present around the table, trust executives, council, University of Cumbria and Imperial College and it was working across those boundaries that she was most heartened by."

Professor Weber is a non-executive member of the board and Co-Director of the Research Hub at Pears Cumbria School of Medicine.

Her visit followed 58 Pears Cumbria School of Medicine students completing placements at North Cumbria Integrated Care.

Pears Cumbria School of Medicine students outside the Cumberland Infirmary Pillars building as they began their placement with NCIC. (Image: NHS)

Doctor Adrian Clements, Executive Medical Director said: "The feedback has been incredibly positive, they've been welcomed, they're very engaged and there's been huge positivity on the feedback I received back from Pears on their experiences in the trust.

"Our clinicians welcome being educators, they welcome the communication they get from students, this is a different cohort of students because they're postgraduate students, they're very mature, they're very questioning, very excited and at times possibly challenging. That's how we can become a better healthcare organisation."

Dr Adrian Clements, Executive Medical Director at North Cumbria Integrated Care. (Image: NCIC)

A partnership between the University of Cumbria and Imperial College London, Pears opened to its first cohort of students in August.

The postgraduate school directly addresses a shortage of trained medical personnel in Cumbria and features a bespoke curriculum on the health issues that disproportionately affect Cumbria.

Interim Chief Executive Trudie Davies said that the trust's link with Pears Cumbria School of Medicine "opens us up to give us so much more opportunity to recruit the best people to this organisation, who will come to live, work and stay with us in Cumbria.

"That really is our key strategic moving forward, which I hope you will see is reflected in this and we'll be working with our Members of Parliament, our schools our universities to make this a really attractive place to be."

Student applications for year two are up 25 per cent at Pears Cumbria School of Medicine, the new establishment has received more than 850 applications for 58 places.