My story: Jackie Mahoney

Assistant Service Manager for Medicine: Jackie Mahoney

Hello, my name is Jackie Mahoney, and I’m an Assistant Service Manager for Medicine at St Helier Hospital.

I oversee 12 teams known as PODs, which stands for ‘point of delivery’. We’re the people who make sure a patient’s care is organised well from the moment they are referred to our hospital to the time they are discharged. Our work is mostly behind the scenes, and I think a lot of patients would be amazed at the amount of work that goes into making sure they are seen in a timely way by the right expert.

It’s part of my job to make sure that we’re hitting the expected ‘referral to treatment’ time standards, which state that once a patient has been referred to hospital by their GP we should book them in for an appointment, care for them and discharge them within a certain time frame. That means that we have to plan well for our patients, and ensure that whatever their condition, they are seen at the right time.

We do exceptionally well at meeting these standards, and that’s down to the hard work of our teams across the hospitals. We give 100% for our patients and the wider community – they are the people who matter most, and why we’re here.

I’ve always lived locally, and St Helier is my hospital – both my son and daughter were born here, and so was my granddaughter. There’s also a second grandchild on the way, who will also be born here.

I’ve worked at the trust for 16 years now, and I can honestly say that I love my job. I’ve been offered a number of great opportunities during my time here, having started as a receptionist in 1999. I worked up to becoming a supervisor, was then promoted to manager of outpatients at St Helier, became a manager at the Nelson Hospital and then onto manage the eye unit at Sutton Hospital. I came back to St Helier as outpatient manager and then in 2011 became Assistant Service Manager. If you’re willing to work hard and go the extra mile for patients, you can achieve a lot at Epsom and St Helier.

I’ve always had a lot of help and support from my managers, and have met some really great teachers here. You can have challenging days though, of course. But with great teams and great managers you can achieve a huge amount.

You’ve got to have laughter though, and over the years, some of my colleagues have become my closest friends. It’s a really friendly place to work, and I would recommend it to anyone.