This weekend I was ‘chuffed’ to see a rare pair of choughs whilst walking around Dunraven Bay, between Cardiff and Swansea. There are fewer than 500 breeding pairs of choughs in the UK and generally speaking they stick to the far westerly side of the isles so it was particularly extraordinary to spot them in the south east of Wales. But there they were, feasting on the plentiful bugs with their distinctive red beaks and frolicking around on the grassy cliff top.
This got me thinking – how often do we venture out of our territory? And what stops us from doing it more often? Breaking out of our habits and daily rituals can give us new perspectives and fresh ideas – have you ever had a eureka moment when on holiday or after talking to someone new or just by doing something you don’t usually do? Yet we can end up treading the same worn paths if we’re not careful and miss out on all the wonderful things we can discover away from the beaten track.
In healthcare there are plenty of things we can learn if we step out of our tired schedules. Why not find out what other teams are doing and share experiences, maybe make that visit to another hospital to investigate how similar services are delivered there or invite others to your department and discuss new thinking and ways of working. Think across boundaries, across agencies – what can you learn from other sectors? Just like the chough, you may find lots of treasures in places where you haven’t looked before.
"I explored new ground;
so can you!" - the even rarer
Talking Chough
