John Rivers CBE DL
STEPHEN SMITH: I now have great pleasure in inviting Dr Paula Holt, Pro Vice-Chancellor Dean of the College of Health and Social Care, to give the commendation for the conferment of Honorary Doctor of the University to John Rivers.
DR PAULA HOLT: Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, honoured guests and graduates it gives me great pleasure to presenting today John Rivers CBE DL for the award of Honorary Doctor of the University.
John has recently retired from his role as Chair of the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton. During his 10 years in post he oversaw a major transformation in NHS care in Derbyshire. John came to work in Derby when he joined Rolls Royce plc in February 1992. Initially he was Personnel Director in the aerospace group but became the HR Director for the company from 1997 until he retired in 2007.
Although HR Director with worldwide responsibilities, John was always very much involved in community relations in Derbyshire. At various times he was a Governor at Wilmorton College (now Derby College); a Board member of the Derbyshire Community Foundation (now Foundation Derbyshire) which supports charitable causes throughout the county; a board member and Chair of ViVA Sinfonia, which is the orchestra of the East Midlands based in Derby; and Chair of Common Purpose, which offers development programmes for local leaders to better understand the way in which the community works. In April 2009, John became Chair of the Board at Derby Teaching Hospital Foundation Trust. He oversaw the opening of the new Royal Derby Hospital in May 2009 following the £344 million transformation. He also became Chair of the Burton Hospitals Foundation Trust in March 2016. The purpose of being appointed Chair to both Trusts was to encourage them to collaborate in health care provision and in July 2018 John became Chair of the newly merged University Hospitals of Derby and Burton Foundation Trust.
During John's tenure the Trust grew to become one of the largest University teaching hospitals in the country which has already had a measurable effect on clinical outcomes. The University has been working with University Hospitals Derby and Burton for many years and many of our new graduate nurses, nursing associates and allied health professionals will work there on qualifying. We also provide a range of professional development opportunities for their staff. As a consequence, we've had University appointed governors at the Trust who worked closely with John and his board over the 10 years of his chairmanship.
One of John's key strengths has been his commitment to building a relationship between the NHS and the local community which it serves. He was innovative and bold by involving the Trust governors in a range of issues, particularly on the merger, because he recognised the importance of those governors as representatives of the communities they serve.
John lives in Cromford in Derbyshire and developed an interest in Florence Nightingale after discovering that he and his wife live in a house that Florence regularly used to visit to care for her great aunt before she left Derbyshire for the Crimean War. John has since campaigned tirelessly to raise awareness of the life and achievements of Florence Nightingale at national level as well as local level. He led a successful campaign to rename London Road Community Hospital in her name and has helped to obtain significant funding for a major new study into her life in Derbyshire. He's also strengthened local links with the national Florence Nightingale Foundation. The Foundation provides scholarships to nurses, midwives and other health professionals and John has provided mentoring and support to these scholarship students each year for a number of years.
John was awarded a CBE in 2001 for services to the community and became a Deputy Lieutenant for Derbyshire in 2011. Chancellor, in recognition of his impact on the region through the development of the NHS Foundation Trust and his commitment to the Florence Nightingale legacy in Derbyshire, we are delighted to award John Rivers the Honorary Degree of Doctor of the University.
JOHN RIVERS: If I may say a few words I'd be very grateful. Chancellor, Pro Chancellor, Lord Lieutenant, Mayor of Derby, honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen and graduands of 2019, life is full of surprises and sometimes they are not the ones you might wish upon yourself, but perhaps the least expected are the best and this was exactly my sentiment when I received a letter in September from your Vice-Chancellor, Professor Kathryn Mitchell, asking me if ‘I felt able to accept the award of Honorary Doctor of the University’. This is one of the easier decisions in life and made in a millisecond. As we've heard in the citation, I have lived and worked in Derby and since 1992 and to be awarded an Honorary Doctorate by my local university is special and it gives me great sense of local pride.
As you heard this award is partly for my work in the NHS through being Chair of the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton and their predecessors, but I want to stress to you all that whatever my achievements and however well I and others may well have set direction and strategy, the achievements are the result of teamwork and the commitment of very many people in our five hospitals. They have worked together over the years frankly in increasingly difficult circumstances to give people the health care they deserve.
So, if I may promote the merits of your hospital, which is now one of the biggest in the country with over 50 operating theatres and 1,700 beds, it is for the work they do every day they see some one thousand people come to A&E or the minor injuries units. Four thousand people come every day attending outpatient appointments and over 200 patients admitted daily for emergency care. On a brighter note there are 25 babies born every day in these hospitals, that's over 9,000 during the course of the year. I was listening earlier on I think one or two of them may well be in the audience. I'm very proud of our hospital and I believe you have every reason to be so as well.
The other reasons for the award is for promoting awareness of the life and achievements of Florence Nightingale. Though she was born in 1820 in Florence as you might guess in Italy, she was actually brought up in Derbyshire where her family home was at Lea Hurst in the village of Holloway, which is just down the road from where I live in Cromford and less than 20 miles from we are all now sitting.
She loved her Derbyshire home and she lived here for thirty years or so before traveling to the Crimea in 1854 where, with a small band of nurses from England, she cared for thousands of sick and wounded soldiers including some from the Derbyshire regiment which served in the Crimea at the same time. By the time she died in 1910 she had established a worldwide reputation as a reformer of Army medical services and a pioneer of public health care designing hospitals and hospital wards not least in Derby's own historic hospitals the Derby General Infirmary and its successor, the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary. She also pioneered the use of statistics to analyse healthcare problems and became the first woman member of the Royal College of Statisticians.
Nightingale was a very modern woman by the standard of her times, and she defied all the social conventions and her family strongly expressed wishes to pursue a career in nursing which was not then regarded as a reputable career for any woman. Of course, it is as the founder of the nursing profession that she is best known and in 1860 she established the first nurses training school in this country that's Thomas' Hospital in London.
Happily as you have heard it is the training of nurses by the University for Derby and Burton Hospitals which helps bind them together in their common enterprise for the benefit of this community, in its way this is the most fitting tribute to one of Derbyshire's as most influential people. Her 200th anniversary of her birth is to be celebrated in 2020, not least in Derbyshire where amongst other many activities and celebratory events the hospital will be renaming the London Road Community Hospital as the Florence Nightingale Community Hospital.
Finally, I'm conscious that I am addressing many people who are about to set out or indeed continue their careers and as I reached the end of mine I reflect that I have spent six years in academia, 36 years in the engineering industry, 10 years in the NHS and about 30 overlapping years in various community activities in music, education, industrial heritage and leadership development. Some of you will know what you wish to do and will follow a clear course but as my career has shown you do not have to know from the outset how your career will develop and in all careers however followed success will depend upon your hard work and how you respond to fortune, chance and opportunity. One certain contributor to your success will be the great education that you received here at Derby University and the devotion of your teachers have shown to your personal and intellectual development. I am sure you will be grateful for what has been given to you as I have been for my education. I was the first member of my family to go to university and it helped shaped my life and defined who I am.
So, thank you once again to the University of Derby for awarding me this Honorary Doctorate. My congratulations to all the graduands today and yesterday and my best wishes to everyone else that is here today. Thank you.
John Rivers' commendation video
Back to John Rivers