Thank you to Brishna Mohammad for sharing her story to mark Allied Health Professions (AHPs) Day 2022. This year's theme and focus for AHPs' Day at the Trust is sharing success and raising awareness of roles and opportunities at North Mid. It gives us a perfect opportunity to shine a light on the third largest workforce in the NHS and at the Trust. AHPs at North Mid all play crucial roles in delivering first-class care to our patients and all live our Trust values every day. Their roles here are varied and range from dietitians, physiotherapists, podiatrists, occupational therapists, operating department practitioners, orthoptists, diagnostic and therapeutic radiographers, and speech and language therapists. Feel free to leave comments for her at the end of this page.

My name is Brishna Mohammad and currently I am the radiotherapy and medical physics quality manager at North Middlesex Hospital. My contextual background is a therapeutic radiographer and I qualified in 2011 starting my career as a brand-new band 5 radiographer at the Imperial College healthcare NHS.

North Middlesex being my local hospital was always going to be my home and after traveling into central London, working across the Hammersmith and Charing cross hospitals for three years after being qualified and three years as a student - I was VERY ready to embark on my professional ladder at North Mid. I began working here as a band 6 radiographer and climbed the ladder in due course taking advantage of the many in house CPD courses available to equip me as a better and competent leader. As I felt the the glass ceiling above, another opportunity unfastened itself and I graciously seized the quality manager role two months ago.

My role:

My responsibilities involve implementing, developing and controlling the delivery of an effective quality management system (QMS) within Radiotherapy and Medical Physics that is consistent with the requirements of current ISO 9001:2015 standards. I actively pursue, accomplish, and encourage quality improvement within Radiotherapy and Medical Physics, whilst having the autonomy to deliver on agreed objectives to support and train staff, and be accountable for all aspects of the quality of service delivered by the quality team.

I am very proud to be able to work in collaboration with the Surgery, Cancer & Associated Services Division, and the head of radiotherapy to develop the strategic planning of the service in line with national and Trust objectives. I advise on therapeutic radiotherapy issues within the organisation and support the implementation of the radiotherapy service specification within the London Cancer Network.

Previously, I also completed a fixed term maternity Macmillan Information and Support Treatment Review Radiographer role through which I acquired extensive knowledge and experience of the radiotherapy on treatment review service. This role enabled me to support patients and carers through their treatment, cancer care plans and holistic needs assessment. 

Achievements so far: 

Through my clinical experiences as an experienced band 7 therapy radiographer, I have developed to be an autonomous, adaptable and versatile professional accommodating the needs of the service and ensuring compliance with the Ionising radiations (medical exposures) regulations, local radiation rules and other relevant legislation.

I have met and exceeded performance expectations in the face of unforeseen circumstances such as staff shortages, increased patient workload, machine breakdowns whilst maintaining a developing service. I led in prominent roles with junior staff and students, supporting them through their learning of their abilities, strengths, and weaknesses, whilst being self-aware. Continuing my passion for helping junior colleagues and students whilst developing my own skillset, I am very excited at being a coach through the NHS leadership Academy as I feel this is an enrichment opportunity for myself to explore my full potential as a leader and expand my development. I use this experience to support and develop staff and students further in their future and cascade motivation across the team.

Through my experiences in junior radiographer preceptorship and training, I am currently working collaboratively with other AHPs to introduce new ideas to the preceptorship programme. 

I have been nominated as the wellbeing champion of our department to raise wellbeing awareness as I pride myself on my calm character, which enables students and colleagues to comfortably turn to me for advice or assistance with difficult tasks. For this reason, I am able to encourage a reporting and learning culture for any treatment errors and I know when to pursue corrective guidance as soon as possible. 

I am fully skilled in Prince2 Foundation and Practitioner project Management course to master an effective tool in implementing new projects within any given organisation. This enriched my theoretical knowledge of governing different processes but also managing risks through multiple evaluations, key decision moments, deviation handling and various communication channels with other department superintendents. These skills equip me for project implementations that are all essential for a Quality Manager. 

As a previous dementia champion, I established CPD sessions after recognising a gap of professional awareness of dementia patients and how to manage their care holistically. These CPD sessions benefited the professional development of staff and ensures our department is providing a high quality of care for patients with different needs and therefore contributing to the patient first Trust strategy. 

To contribute to the ethos of audit and research within the department, I took the lead in auditing the radiotherapy department for hand hygiene as the infection control liaison to evaluate the departmental infection control policy compliance which I updated significantly and introduced the correct infection control measures.
 
Ultimately, I am proud to be a part of North Middlesex Hospital and be contributing to the vision of providing outstanding care for local people.