Take action as a leader in society
Sometimes in life, fate takes a hand leading us down pathways we’re reluctant to follow. For Steve Ellis, a new career embarked upon with diffidence and a chance meeting with Common Purpose, was to change the way he thinks.
As General Manager of St Petroc's Society in Truro, Cornwall – a charitable organisation that seeks to provide accommodation and social care services for single homeless people, Steve Ellis’s thoughts and actions have direct consequences for thousands of people in desperate need of help.
The catalyst for changing the way Steve thinks and operates was Common Purpose.
Steve left his Liverpool home seven years ago after a successful career in urban regeneration to retire to Cornwall, but after a while he became restless and felt a strong need to work “at the coalface” helping others. He joined St Petroc’s on a part-time basis as a Practitioner directly helping out homeless people, but at this time the charity was in dire financial straits and the trustees decided to wind up the organisation.
“I could see that it was being badly run,” says Steve, “then when the trustees initially asked me to oversee the closure due to my management experience, I very reluctantly agreed.”
After a short stay of execution, the resolve to save the organisation strengthened in Steve’s mind and he made a strong – and successful - case to the trustees not to let St Petroc’s die.
It was at this point that Steve first came across Common Purpose.
“They asked if they could come along with a group of people on the Matrix programme to hear about our work. I thought, ‘who are all these head-shapers?’ but when I looked at how incredibly senior the list of delegates was, I found myself interviewing them and I realised for the first time the true potential Common Purpose presented.”
When the opportunity for Steve himself to attend a Matrix programme in Cornwall arose, he jumped at the chance.
“As I’d been out of the frame of management for a couple of years I’d begun to question my own abilities as I tried to turn St Petroc’s round. On the Matrix programme, I was able to speak to other delegates totally openly about the problems I was facing. You get to be in rooms with people you just wouldn’t meet in any other walk of life. I realised that all the leaders were facing similar issues - and that my own ideas did have true merit. I took the confidence from that to stick to my own plans.”
It’s a good thing for St Petroc’s, and the thousands of homeless people in the area, that he did. Steve was able to turn the organisation around financially through a vigorous fundraising drive aimed at trusts and individuals. He also brought pressure on the local authority to provide new accommodation and facilities for St Petroc’s and was able to raise the money for the lease via trusts. The charity now has around 8,500 appointments a year compared to fewer than 2,000 before the move.
Perhaps the most remarkable of Steve’s achievements following Matrix came as a result of meeting Jayne Howard, the former acting Director of Public Health for the Central Cornwall NHS Primary Care Trust –on the programme.
“One of the discussions was about health care and as we spoke I realised that Jayne and I were trying to tackle similar issues from different perspectives. But what few people realise is that homeless people just can’t get primary care because they don’t have an address – so they end up at A & E departments clogging up the system.”
Steve and Jayne managed to gain NHS funding to staff drop-in centres at three locations in Cornwall to provide primary health care for homeless people. Two GPs and a nurse provide the service at the three centres – each of which has at least one clinic per day. The clinics are based at resource centres already used by homeless people – including St Petroc’s in Truro. The service has over 150 people registered at any given time.
“The centres have been particularly good for helping people with mental illness problems which often accompany homelessness – who often end up in hospital. So not only did the new centres ease the pressure on A & E departments, they also helped deal with mental illness at a much earlier stage, helping to free up vital hospital beds. Although the cost savings are difficult to measure accurately, this will have saved a fortune – and much improved the health care for homeless people.”
The NHS will look at the initiative after a three year trial period to decide whether to role the initiative out across the country.
“For me, meeting up with Jayne and agreeing on this initiative was a perfect example of linking two people with complementary goals who wouldn’t have worked together without Common Purpose. It’s all about pulling together different resources to make something much more than the sum of its parts.
“I now feel I’m really doing the work I was born to do – and Common Purpose was instrumental in making that happen.”
