Today, we are celebrating Louise Walker (pictured) and everyone else across NHS Lothian Estates and Facilities teams. Thank you all! Read the article below to meet Muriel, an Operational Manager in Domestic Services, and learn why this day is important to her.
Muriel Young is an Assistant Manager in Domestic Services who has been covering as an Operational Manager throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. She started in the NHS at Liberton Hospital in the eighties as an auxiliary nurse; after the birth of her children, she looked after them full-time until she re-joined the NHS in 1989.
“I was only planning to be there for a year,” Muriel says. “I joined the domestic services team. It was part-time, so it worked out very well in terms of childcare.”
While working as a supervisor in the domestic team, Muriel completed two management courses over the course of two years. “It was my boss that put me forward for management training,” she says. “That changed the trajectory of my career completely.”
Muriel has a passion for infection prevention and control (IPC) and works to enhance the training domestic staff receive. She teamed up with the IPC lead to train all domestics under her to become “Cleanliness Champions”, which led the Domestic Services Team at Liberton Hospital to become the Team of the Year for the Celebrating Success Awards 2015.
“Because I’m a domestic myself, I knew where the gaps in the training were,” Muriel says. “So I knew what we needed to address. Now, domestics are a lot more confident and less anxious about spreading infection. Our staff feel more educated and safer at work.”
She oversees a variety of training in her role and has worked with the learning and development team to increase the quality of training offered to domestics. “Our training is now scenario-based, and we have pocket manuals to support staff with dyslexia or other learning difficulties,” she says. “It’s made a huge difference – our training records are second to none.”
Though Muriel was encouraged to pursue management training, she recalls that that was not the norm when she started out. “There are more opportunities now, and development is encouraged. Facilities and estates is a lot more appealing as a field nowadays,” Muriel says.
In her years as a domestic, Muriel says she has experienced prejudice against her field. “’You’re only a domestic because you can’t do anything else’ is definitely something that I’ve heard,” she says, “but not for a long time now. The NHS Lothian values are for everyone, including our domestics, and people make those kinds of thoughtless comments a lot less.
“I try to teach everyone not to say ‘oh, I’m just a domestic’, but instead to say, ‘yes, I’m the domestic’. There’s nothing ‘just’ about it! The NHS wouldn’t function without cleaners, and we should be proud of ourselves and each other. Saying to someone, ‘hey, you should be really proud – the ward is spotless’ is important. Before, we didn’t get much praise as such, which is why I’m so happy to see national days like this one being created. Everyone deserves recognition for their work.”
