16 Apr 2024 Community

The Kirkwood Spotlight: Dave Carrott

The Kirkwood movement has many parts to it which makes it a strong charity and organisation and ultimately means we can care for many people across Kirklees who are living with a life limiting illness. One of the parts we want to focus on in this spotlight is our facilities and maintenance team and specifically the fantastic Dave Carrott. 

Dave has risen through The Kirkwood ranks and has worked here for just under five years. An important part of the team, Dave makes sure that the buildings with which we care for patients and staff work in, are fully operational. Having gone from being a caretaker, he now has the position of Maintenance Supervisor and looks after a team of people. 

Dave is proud to work for The Kirkwood and enjoys his role helping others develop into the caretaker and facilities maintenance world. 

On working for us and describing how he has risen through the ranks, he said: “When I started, I was classed as a caretaker. However, it has evolved over time and my role now encompasses a lot of other duties on a day-to-day basis. We look after all our buildings including all the shops that we have in the community across Kirklees. 

“When I first started I would get a call from a shop saying they’ve got a leak from their ceiling, or something is broken like a door, or a toilet and I’d be sent out to go and fix it. 

“I’d also be doing stuff like painting offices or patients’ rooms on the In-Patient Unit or going for drugs and medication for the patients and delivering it to the nurses. 

“I moved up from being a caretaker to being a Facilities Technician which was great. I kept a lot of my duties but added some others and was given a bit more authority in my role. From that I have recently moved up to the role of Maintenance Supervisor. This means I now manage people on a day-to-day basis, I am really enjoying the role. I still get on and do the jobs myself when they need doing, I like to lead by example. 

“In this role I’m learning what everyone in my team is good at, what their strengths and weaknesses are. Sometimes if it’s a big job we buddy people up and that means people are learning all the time because people learn off each other. 

“There are three parts to a maintenance strategy: you have plan preventative, you have reactive plans and plans where you improve things. 

“Some of the most important things in this role that you must know are things like where the pipes go and where you shut off electricity. You need to know where the fuse boards and boilers are. You need to have full schematics of the building. You need to be aware of everything that is in relation to the buildings and facilities you are taking care of. 

“We have a list of jobs that we need to complete every day, we go around and do checks, without doing those checks we’d miss things that need to get sorted. Hopefully by doing these checks we can make sure that other departments can function to the best of their abilities and most importantly the clinical staff can give the best possible care to the patients we are supporting, especially on the In-Patient Unit. 

“When I started working for The Kirkwood there were two experienced people already working within the team and obviously you learn the buildings and what's needed where. Having those experienced people to learn from was instrumental in how I have been able to develop and move forward in my own role. I'm just trying to build on that and make the service even better.”

One of Dave’s new duties is to help give our volunteer gardeners any support they need from a maintenance and facilities point of view. Dave’s dad was a keen gardener himself and so Dave feels proud that he can support our amazing gardeners to do the work they clearly love doing, keeping The Kirkwood garden at Dalton looking amazing. 

On that new part of his job, he said: “My dad was a keen gardener whereas I’m more of a landscaper. I’m in charge of helping the gardeners now and liaising with them for whatever they might need. I water the flower beds and help them with any other maintenance tasks around the garden. 

“It makes you think how good a job they do when patients and families come and sit in the garden and enjoy the experience and say, ‘wow look at this amazing garden with all this beauty around.’ It does mean a lot when that happens.” 

Dave already had a wealth of experience in various industries before joining The Kirkwood. As he has progressed in his role with the charity, he has taken his learning from his previous roles too. One of the things he loves to do is pass on his knowledge of different sectors on to other people.  

He said: “I had 20 years in the construction business doing different stuff from house building to working on various sites. I’ve worked in customer facing roles and in transport and logistics, I’ve worked for big stores and in delivery sections. I’ve had a lot of experience in different working environments, and I try every day to bring that experience to my job here.”

“I love mentoring people, I’ve been asked in my past roles to train staff up, so I’m used to doing it and it’s something I really enjoy.”

On how proud he is to work for The Kirkwood, Dave commented: “It's all about when you see what we stand for. I love this place and helping the community. It makes me proud when people give us the feedback they do, all the departments are just getting fantastic feedback all the time from families and patients which is great.”

Finally, Dave commented on how he’d like to develop his role with The Kirkwood moving forward. 

He said: “I like to feel that I'm contributing well to The Kirkwood and I think without the facilities department the wheels fall off a bit even though a lot of our work is unseen.

“We're trying to plan a bit better going forward and make everything better, we want to make it better for staff, for patients, their families and everyone who uses any of The Kirkwood facilities every day. 

“I want to continue in my role and keep developing my skills and learn new things. I just want to do the best job I can do for a charity and movement I am proud to be part of.”