Senior leader reflections: Sarine Baz

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust runs Good Hope, Heartlands, Queen Elizabeth and Solihull hospitals, the Birmingham Chest Clinic, and Solihull community services.

I qualified 10 years ago as a physiotherapist and my first job after qualifying was at Heartlands Hospital as a junior physiotherapist. I did that for a short period of time and then moved across to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, again as a junior physiotherapist and completed all of my junior rotations there. I then went on to do my senior rotations for almost five years, before moving to another trust, where I was the team lead in neurosciences and oncology. I completed that role for about 18 months, before moving to New Zealand to work as a practice supervisor (physiotherapist), leading a team in older people's health. After six months there, I returned to the UK and worked as a locum physiotherapist before coming back to UHB. Here I started working in divisional management as an operations manager, where I’ve been for approximately fifteen months.

I knew quite early on that I wanted to work in management, in particular therapy management, so I took different opportunities along the way. For example, when I was a senior physiotherapist managing junior staff, I picked up extra responsibilities around service development. I also became a steward for the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP), which gave me exposure to divisional management and staff side, and opportunities to learn about policies, procedures and development within the wider organisation. I was also successful in becoming the regional steward for the West Midlands and I am currently the Equality, Diversity and Belonging Chair for the CSP, which involves providing strategic support and leadership for the physiotherapy profession.

Equality, diversity and belonging are really important to me. It’s about professions and organisations ensuring that we are truly listening to people and hearing what their concerns are, and creating actionable plans from this. I feel like this has been heightened due to the effects of the pandemic as well as events such as the George Floyd tragedy. For some people, this topic may feel like a little bit of a tick-box exercise but I think as a profession and organisation, steps have slowly been taken in the right direction – but there is still a long way to go.

I still work as physiotherapist on the weekend so I haven't quite given that up just yet as I aspire to go into therapy management because I don’t think there is enough visibility, or sadly representation, in leadership positions within the NHS, and even the wider private sector, for people from ethnic minorities. For me, that's what's driven me to get experience and take opportunities to continue to develop myself. I've also started my Masters of Business Administration (MBA) via UHB’s apprenticeship programme, so I'm a year into a two-year programme. It’s definitely not the standard route that I think people take, but it’s another opportunity to develop myself.

In terms of operations management, it’s hard to describe an average day as every day is different. Of course, we have a diary with set meetings around our specialities, for example, respiratory or our cancer pathway, and then other meetings like catch-ups with our consultants. But then you also have the daily issues which may crop up, which can involve a bit of ‘firefighting’. My diary may look like one thing, but I have to reprioritise it depending on the needs of the department.

I was born in Birmingham but my family are from Kashmir, and a lot of my extended family are from abroad and moved to the UK. My dad was born here and my mum was born abroad but came to the UK when she was very young. I think that's probably a big reason why I went into healthcare, from the point of view of wanting to help others and as part of our culture of trying to give back to the community or people who are less fortunate. That’s been a big push for me.

A lot of teams don't get the thanks they deserve. For example, I was working as a physiotherapist during the pandemic in critical care at UHB and then in Coventry, so I saw massively the big thanks that you got being a clinician. However, all of the people that were working behind-the-scenes, having to reschedule or cancel appointments and thinking of new innovative ways of working were just as valuable. So, there's a big appreciation from me coming into this role of understanding the behind-the-scenes work as well.

Muhammad Ali once said, and I think it's quite relevant, “The service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.” Everyone at UHB, whether you are clinical or otherwise, is here for a reason.

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