The Douglas Macmillan Hospice, better known as Dougie Mac, is an adult hospice that delivers palliative and end-of-life care to the people of North Staffordshire. Its vision to be admired as a centre of excellence is supported by its core values of CARE: Compassion, Accountability, Respect, and Excellence.

Dougie Mac is proud of the efforts of all of its employees and truly believes in the fact that better trained, more knowledgeable employees provide a better level of care for their patients. In fact, learning new skills is promoted as one of the organisation’s reward mechanisms allowing employees to not only develop their abilities, but also incentives them to do so.

The organisation has created a Learning and Development team who in turn have produced a ‘Hall of Fame’ where employees who have completed any studies or courses, or those who are continuing to study, are recognised.

The ‘Hall of Fame’ is also used to promote a number of learning initiatives, including National Apprenticeship Week, to encourage other employees to learn and develop.

All employees are made aware of the opportunities to develop that are available to them as soon as they join the company. As part of the onboarding and welcome meetings for new staff, the Learning and Development team spend time outlining both the mandatory training requirements and the additional available opportunities.

Furthermore, training is available for the Senior Leadership Team, with external 360 feedback and coaching provided to support growth and succession planning.