Return home for Theatre Manager
Practice Plus Group Hospital Plymouth (formerly Peninsula NHS Treatment Centre), has appointed Cathy Thuis-Harris to the role of Theatre Manager, and it is a return home to Plymouth after some time away.
Cathy trained as an Operating Department Practitioner in Plymouth in 1984. Her career has included some exciting overseas postings including working as an Anaesthetic Practitioner in the Falkland Islands (where she was part of the Aeromedical Team responsible for taking patients to South America for treatment) and as an expedition member of the Operation Hernia Surgical Team in Ghana.
Over her career Cathy has gained experience in a wide range of disciplines including orthopaedics, trauma, plastics and reconstructive surgery, paediatrics, neuro and spinal surgery, thoracic surgery, general surgery and urology.
She has always been passionate about education and supporting individuals and teams to develop their roles to the benefit of patient care and safety. A career highlight was to introduce a competency-based training course for non-registered staff to scrub foe selected surgical cases.
Said Cathy: “After two years working as a Theatre Manager in Lincolnshire I’m thrilled to be back in my beautiful home town of Plymouth working with a fantastic team who are committed to providing the best possible care for their patients.”
Cathy joins at an exciting time for the hospital. Not only has it undergone a name change, but since March, when elective (planned) surgery was suspended because of the pandemic, the team at Practice Plus Group Hospital Plymouth reconfigured their way of working to provide vital support to local NHS patients and colleagues. They continue to provide this support to ensure that NHS patients receive the care they need, but they have also been given the green light to accept patients for elective procedures for NHS, self-pay and private medical insurance care.
Mark White, Hospital Director at Practice Plus Group Hospital Plymouth commented: “We are delighted to welcome Cathy to her team. Her skills, expertise and experience will be beneficial for patients and colleagues. An outstanding patient experience continues to sit at the heart of everything we do, which is why we are operating under the mantra of ‘Access to Excellence’. This means we will always invest in the best people, techniques, facilities and equipment while ensuring that patients are aware of and act on their right to choose where they are treated.”
The hospital carries out a wide range of inpatient and day case procedures in the areas of:
· Orthopaedic surgery (hips, knees, shoulders etc)
· Cataract surgery
· General surgery (hernias, gall bladder removal)
· Endoscopy
· Diagnostic imaging (X-ray, ultrasound and MRI)
Practice Plus Group Hospital Plymouth is well known for the quality of its patient experience and was the first hospital of its kind to achieve a rating of ‘Outstanding’ from the Care Quality Commission. Comments from patients posted on Facebook include: “My experience was commendable”; “The care and respect they give to patients is outstanding”; “Amazing staff and service”, and; “The care is top class, just like all the staff”.
In the most recent results from the national Friends and Family Test patients gave Practice Plus Group Hospital Plymouth a score of 100% for its ophthalmology services, day ward, inpatient ward and endoscopy. Overall, Practice Plus Group Hospital Plymouth scored 98.4% from the 677 patients who completed the Friends and Family questionnaire during the month of September.
