2025 will see the NRC treat its first patients and when that moment comes we will all be immensely proud.
We are not there yet but the last 12 months has been nothing short of astonishing. I wanted to share a few reflections, thanks and hopes as we close out 2024 and get ready to step into a pivotal year for the NRC.
We have achieved a lot this year. The building is the most obvious thing because it’s big, physical and tangible. It looks great and it’s tremendously exciting to anticipate clinicians replacing builders and the whole place springing into life. The structure is complete and the fit out is in full swing. Just as when the Defence facility really started to come together, the time when building something switches to operating something feels within touching distance.
I wrote this time last year about a memorable moment for me being when we marked the official ‘green light’ from the Government and ‘full steam ahead’ for the NRC. In 2024, there have been many uplifting moments – as well as a good deal of testing and demanding ones – but the standout memory would be when we were up on the roof in April to commemorate our ‘topping out’. On a bright and blustery spring day, we gathered to commit ourselves to the building and affirm our intention to make it a genuinely amazing place that will do amazing things. As I etched my initials into the cement it began to sink in that this is really happening and is going to be great.
But as I always say, the NRC is about much more than a building and equally memorable moments this year have been our vital work in the recruitment and training of our clinical rehabilitation workforce. This has involved specific recruitment and training, to degree level in many cases, and will also include the movement of existing staff from their existing roles in Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH). And while training has always been a key element, so has research.
The ongoing work of our partner universities and recent appointment of a Research Director has accelerated progress on this key strand, given also that it is becoming very clear that high technology will play a large part in the future of successful rehabilitation outcomes. The NRC’s relationship with university and academic partners is also key to developing the whole of the Stanford Hall Rehabilitation Estate as a ‘campus’, thereby maximising the opportunities for knowledge exchange and improving outcomes for patients.
In so many areas, I’m hugely grateful for the hard work and application of colleagues across the team. Whether our existing staff and those at Linden Lodge as we prepare to move, or our construction team, our academic partners, or our programme board. Wherever one looks there are people striving to make something worthwhile happen – and I could mention many more.
But if you’re reading this, I want to thank you too. The NRC may well be a solution to a clinical need and a societal responsibility but it is also something we choose to do. Your interest, our momentum and next year’s opportunity to start showing what we can achieve are all tremendously important.
Within the team we talk about ‘demonstrating the NRC’s credentials’ because we are new, we are bringing a new clinical model, and anything novel, however well evidenced, must show that it works.
I’m confident we will and, when we do, not only will we repay the faith people have placed in us but we’ll improve lives. That is the raison d’etre for the NRC. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning and that’s what we have the opportunity to do when we start treating patients next year.
Very best wishes to you for a safe, peaceful and happy Christmas.