Chief Nurse Marie Crofts and new Chief Nursing Officer Britta Klinck

Chief Nurse Marie Crofts will be leaving the Trust in December to join Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board (ICB) as Chief Nursing Officer.

Marie, a nurse for 39 years, has been at Oxford Health since June 2019.

During her four and a half years at Oxford Health, staff and patient wellbeing have always been at the heart of Marie’s approach, ensuring we take care of ourselves and those we look after – supporting and collaborating with teams to deliver excellent care.

Marie led the Trust response to the global pandemic as the Director of Infection Prevention and Control (DIPC) and worked closely with our IPC team to deliver important guidance and updates to staff to keep everyone safe. Throughout her time at Oxford Health, Marie has highlighted the importance of staff immunisations, supported the flu campaign and encouraged staff to have their vaccines.

Chief Nurse Marie Crofts, new Chief Nursing Officer Britta Klinck, Nursing Workforce Transformation Lead Simon Ball

She has championed the importance of improving patient safety ensuring staff feel empowered and valued through the work to create a Restorative Just and Learning Culture (RJLC). Marie has advocated and led this work to promote a psychological safe environment to better support staff when things don’t go to plan and to encourage learning from incidents. The Learning Together for a Safer Tomorrow programme (also known as PSIRF) has already started to create a positive culture where people are kind, compassionate and inclusive. As executive sponsor, Marie is extremely proud to have worked closely with the Race Equality Network and EDI team to champion racial discrimination in nursing and other clinical professions, to ensure we create opportunities for all and work in a culture where we treat people with fairness and equity.

Chief Nurse Marie Crofts and Chief Medical Officer Karl Marlowe

One of Marie’s favourite parts of her role was meeting colleagues across our sites in both clinical and non-clinical roles and presenting awards for outstanding contributions, such as Exceptional People Awards. Marie instigated and embedded the DAISY and BEE awards to recognise the valuation contribution of our clinical staff.

Colleagues were welcome to say goodbye to Marie at her farewell lunch on Thursday 7 December. Guests at Marie’s leaving lunch spoke of her leadership in the Covid pandemic and

Chief Nurse Marie Crofts and Nurse Consultant Infection Prevention and Control Helen Bosley

how her work with the IPC and infection control teams was so valued. Marie in turn thanked colleagues like Nurse Consultant Infection Prevention and Control Helen Bosley for their support during that period of time, and her “right hand person” Simon Ball for all his time working with her.

We wish Marie all the best in her new role and would like to extend our thanks for all she has done for the Trust.

Following a competitive recruitment process, Britta Klinck has been appointed to the role of Chief Nursing Officer for the Trust, taking over the role in December. Website: New Chief Nurse announcement.