Preston's Europeans: the European heroes that help our NHS run at the Royal Preston Hospital

Doroto Matuszewska, 56, has worked in IT and training at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals Trust for the past seven years, and in that time she has made herself invaluable to the trust’s workings at RPH and Chorley and South Ribble Hospital.

Originally from the Polish city of Wrocław, Dorota has been the trust’s Assistant Clinical Applications Training Manager for the past two years but when she first came to Preston in 1998, after her husband got a professor job at UCLan, she could not speak a word of English.

Dorota said: “My first step was to go to Newman College to learn English, it took me two years, but in the end, I passed GCSE English with a B, that was the biggest achievement. While I was there, I helped other students with the computers queries, because back in Poland, I was an IT teacher. I was lucky enough to get a job in Newman College as an adult IT tutor, and then five years later, I got a job at the hospital.”

In her role, Dorota believes she is vital to the smooth running of RPH, firstly as she is responsible for the initial testing of all the systems used across the hospital. Then once she and her team approve the systems, they must train all the thousands of staff on how to use them.

Dorota explains: “Whichever systems, the doctors, nurses, secretaries, basically any staff member is using, the trainers must first test it and then we prepare all the training materials such as user guides, we arrange the training sessions, we train the users, and then we support the system implementation (go-live support). So there's a period when – it's very exciting – we could be, for example, in theatres, wearing scrubs, and showing the staff what to click on the computers while they are operating on the patient."

Dorota is also responsible for providing 24/7 technical support to all staff at the trust, with her team taking it in turns to be on call; and throughout the year, she must test updates on the current systems and constantly train new staff.

Dorota explains: “There are quite a lot of systems hence there is never enough of us! We've also got a busy schedule training international nurses, every three months for perhaps the past two years, we've had a new cohort of up to 40 international nurses. Then every half a year, because we are a teaching hospital, we've got doctor intakes, so we have to train them too.”

As a trainer, Dorota believes that being from a different country means she may be able to ease users in a unique way, explaining: “A lot of people say ‘I'm not very good with computers’ and I tell them, ‘I'm not very good in English’, plus there is also such a mixture of nationalities, users might feel more confident knowing that my language is not perfect, and yet I’m able to train them.”

More so than this, Dorota says having a mix of nationalities at her 24/7 workplace allows for more harmonious shift cover, adding “What is lovely in my team is the different backgrounds and religions. For example, I'm Christian, so during Christmas, when someone is on call, my colleagues from different beliefs are happy to cover for me while I'm happy to be on call when there are holidays that are important to them.”

On whether European contribution is clear across the hospital, Dorota said: “There are European nurses, doctors, theatre staff and admin staff across my trust, and we are just trying to be grateful for our new country, we feel like home here and we want to pay it back. I also was a patient here, I had cancer seven years ago. Being treated by the staff that I trained and knew before, gave me great comfort at such a stressful time of my life, and it’s lovely when I have to train the doctors that took care of me.”

As well as being well-treated herself at RPH, Dorota also wants to give back to a city that has been very welcoming to her.

Dorota commented: “Preston is very friendly. When I first came here and I couldn't say much in English, everybody was trying to help, everybody was calling me ‘love’ and saying ‘love do you need any help’, so a much different experience to when I had friends in big cities like London, where everybody keeps you at arms length but here, everybody tries to help you."

Dorota adds that she has never had any bad experiences with patients due to her nationality, and her colleagues have always made it clear she is a much appreciated member of the team, especially by sending her “Thank you’s” on the trusts’ unique online thanking system.

As a final note, Dorota said: “I'm very grateful to work for the NHS, I feel very proud. Especially because I was also a patient, I always want to give something back and I do my best to work super hard to deliver. As people coming from abroad, living in this country, we’re not here to earn money then go, but to make this home. I’m very happy that we've got such an international community in the trust, it enriches all of us. We learn about other cultures and perspectives and this helps us make sure that the patients receive the best care. When you look at us all working in the hospital – whether a domestic assistant or consultant – we are all just trying to make our living and do our best to help run the hospital and NHS. I love Wrocław, but my home is in Preston now and I am very happy here.”