#TeamNorthMid blogs

Thank you to Yasin Fokeerbaccus, a highly specialist physiotherapist for general surgery and orthopaedics at North Mid, for taking part in our #ThisIsMe blog series to mark National Apprenticeship Week 2023. His blog takes a dive into his upbringing, what it's like being born at the place he now works at, his life away from work as a reserve in the Royal Air Force and how doing an apprenticeship has helped him. We hope you enjoy reading his story and encourage colleagues to do the same.

Feel free to share any feedback or comments for Yasin at the end of the page. If you wish to share your own story and experiences about diversity, please contact our communications team at northmid.comms@nhs.net.

My name is Yasin Fokeerbaccus, I am 31 years old, and I am a highly specialist physiotherapist for general surgery and orthopaedics at North Mid. My North Mid journey started back in 1991 when I was born on T4 ward. At the age of six months, my parents decided to relocate to Mauritius which is originally where I am from and where I spent the next 12 years growing up. At the age of 13, we moved back to the UK for studies and have lived in Edmonton ever since.

My passion has always been in healthcare, helping others and seeing progress. I graduated from university after completing my bachelor's and master's in physiotherapy. Having been a student at the Trust, I progressed to being a band 7 within eight years. The hospital has a number of significant meanings to me both personally and professionally. My role consists of co-managing the surgery and orthopaedics physiotherapy team, ensuring both our trauma and elective patients are reviewed, mobilised and d/c safely. It also consists of reviewing surgical laparotomy patients, acutely unwell chest, and occasionally day surgery patients.

I am very proud of my role and always look forward to being at work. What I particularly enjoy about the Trust is the variety of patients we get to see and the wonderfully diverse community we get to work with. To me, diversity is about what makes each of us unique and includes our backgrounds, personality, life experiences, and beliefs, all of the things that make us who we are. It is a combination of our differences that shape our view of the world, our perspective, and our approach. I believe diversity is also about recognising, respecting, and valuing differences based on ethnicity, gender, race, and religion. It also includes an infinite range of individual unique characteristics and experiences, such as communication style, career path, life experience and other variables that influence our personal perspectives. What I like about North Mid is the people I get to work with. I believe we have an incredible team and the support I have received during my time here so far has been fantastic.

Outside of working life and when I’m not travelling, I am a reserve in the Royal Air Force and have been for the past 11 years. I qualified as a private pilot at the age of 18 (before I had my first driving lesson). Currently I hold the rank of Flight Sergeant, qualified as a Skill at Arms Weapons Instructor and I spend my weekends conducting live firing and flying whenever possible. Aviation has always been a great interest for me, and I have had wonderful opportunities to travel around the world up to 47 countries (so far). I also like to keep very active and am always up for a challenge. I am currently planning to do the 3-Peaks challenge for the second time after already completing it once back in 2011, in just over 21 hours.

Physical and mental challenges have always helped me thrive and are every aspect of what I do. I know how to use it to my advantage, and motivate myself and others around me. Having this mindset is also why I chose to become a physiotherapist, whereby motivating, encouraging others, and having that ‘never give up’ attitude is significantly important for recovery. These are characteristics that I have strengthened throughout my life and developed myself as a leader. Whilst being at North Mid, I have had the opportunity to complete a Clinical Educator Course, the AHP Leadership Course, Mary Seacole Programme and currently studying a 2-year Chartered Manager apprenticeship programme in Business Management Executive for Health and Social Care with the University of Manchester.

The Chartered Manager Health and Social Care Apprenticeship combines management theory with a practical understanding of health and social care. It helps to prepare us, as professionals, to take a leading role in driving improvements in the delivery of care, and to understand the strategic challenges facing the NHS and wider health and care delivery. Upon completion of this course, we are professionally recognised as Chartered Managers and Members of the Chartered Management Institute (CMgr MCMI). What attracted me to this course was the combination of teaching and what I have learned to be able to apply it to real live clinical/non-clinical scenarios, exploring the impacts and seeing the improvements. This is also ideal for my role which also involves driving improvements in care quality, managing key delivery challenges, and rapidly improving care outcomes.

This apprenticeship has benefitted me in many ways. It has allowed me to explore my own personal qualities, explored my learning, and where I can improve as a leader. It has influenced me to be honest and reflect more as a manager, be able to adapt to different approaches, and taught me how to be open, encourage, welcome and support change. I have found the experience challenging yet rewarding and exciting. I have also enjoyed setting and reaching new goals and challenging my own resilience and stamina. As well as personal improvements, it has given me the tools to be able to influence others towards their own development, build on my own skills surrounding emotional intelligence, leadership and develop successful working relationships. I believe this qualification is paramount in my development and in supporting my career going forward. It allows me to think more about service delivery, the impacts, and the consequences from a strategic standpoint. I believe these skills will one day be very useful and critical when working towards achieving my ultimate goal which is to become the head of the service within my profession at the hospital where I was born, and where it all started.

As it is National Apprenticeship week, I would encourage anyone who wishes to progress to consider apprenticeships. It has provided me with incredible skills but also flexibility. I always thought working and studying at the same time would be impossible however the university has provided a course that is flexible enough to complete and still maintain a good strong home-work-social life balance.