The Great CCG Bake Off!

10th – 14th November 2014

Due to the popularity of the BBC show ‘The Great British Bake Off’, the CCG has decided to hold its own bake off, to celebrate colleagues’ baking talents and to raise money in the process. There are 12 participants in the weekly challenge which sees baking abilities tested across range of areas from cakes to biscuits to pies. On Tuesday, before the monthly staff briefing, the first challenge took place! Bakers were asked to create a sponge cake of their choice by using a maximum of four eggs, including a filling in the cake and incorporating fruit or veg in the finished product. Being a fan of the show, I couldn't resist getting involved!

For the first challenge I decided to bake a Jamie Oliver chocolate celebration cake, which was filled with strawberries, raspberries and whipped cream and decorated with melted chocolate, fruit and Malteasers. The cakes were anonymously judged by three volunteers at the CCG; Karen, Sally and Niall, who announced the winners during the staff briefing. Somehow I managed to bag second place in this week’s bake off! I was extremely surprised to come second as there were some incredible cakes!
Next week we tackle the difficult challenge of creating biscuits with a Disney theme!

As a way of improving quality and performance, we held a ‘Brown Paper Event', which is a technique used to map out a process and looking at ways of improving individual elements, by identifying concerns. The ‘Brown Paper Event’, was held to identify problems with the hospital’s ‘Delayed Transfers of Care’ (DTOC) process. We mapped the process from the initial admission to hospital to the end transfer back to the patient's home, intermediate care or a nursing home. We arranged for a number of nurses, social workers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and continuing healthcare (CHC) staff, to take part in the workshop to understand each individual's role in the process. By the end of the event, we identified the main areas of concerns and improvements to be made to make the process flow more smoothly. Before this event, I was not aware of how long and complicated the transfer of care process was and the number of staff that are involved.