Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 25 January
January 25, 2019
While many of you have been working hard on the most important things this week, Steve Clarke and I have been out finding new car parking spaces at Sandwell. We have identified 20 new spaces for immediate use, and have plans to add perhaps 40 more by spring. Early next month we will announce the arrangements for our new car parks from 2020, alongside programmes this spring to reduce car park use by supporting and funding alternative ways to get to work. I know that car parking issues are a huge source of frustration. The future is much better but we are working to make the present bearable.
I am pleased that the nurse escalator programme that we launched almost a year ago has sprung into life now, with Paula Gardner and colleagues giving it renewed emphasis. Whether it is to move from HCA band 2 to band 3, into our nurse apprentice band 4 role, or the escalators for bands 5 to 6, we want to make career development at the Trust easier. Linked to your Aspiring to Excellence PDR outcome, some colleagues are being fast tracked through the role hierarchy, with extra support and opportunities. Within nursing, we are clear as a Board that we want to make sure that there is an expert practitioner career development route, as well as a route into professional management. Colleagues should not need to leave the Trust to develop specialised skills in some domains, which is why we have developed our critical care programme, and are looking at similar approaches in fields like infection control. The Trust in 2019-20 will continue to place a massive emphasis on being fully and better staffed, and whilst inevitably there is much talk about recruitment, we continue to focus on retaining people in our organisation and developing them into new roles. That should be part of a manager’s job and their appraisal, and by way of balance, the Board has just approved a new programme to support deputy directors in corporate functions en route to executive level posts. We need outstanding clinicians and outstanding managers in our system.
Just like last week, there are more people to thank for our emergency care mobilisation than there is space on this blog. The emphasis of the work that Rachel Barlow, Paula Gardner and David Carruthers are leading is on coaching to unblock historic problems in how we discharge patients, access diagnostic support, ready beds in our assessment units, and manage surges or other pressure in our emergency departments. Jo Thomas and Debi Fretwell are leading much of that work successfully at ward level, while Helen Mallard and Amandeep Tung are alongside our A&E shift leaders. Portering is always part of the picture and I know that many people have asked to mention Zaheer Iqbal’s work in experimenting with new ideas in that field. Saket Singhal, Linda Cashmore and Jenny Aldershaw have probably seen the best discharge day for many months through their work on Priory 5 – but there is still a weekend to go. That picks up a theme I want to return to next week. We operate seven days a week and overnight – and our site teams are adapting admirably to changing roles and expectations. Patreece Wright, Jo Aljundi and Laura Roberts have helped hugely with that, but I know that the site and duty senior nurse and managers need your help and cooperation not only to manage now, but to plan tomorrow. The notion that a patient being discharged in the morning can be safely sat out from bed, in many cases, before 10am is starting to take hold, as is bedside handover on admission. Taken together both ideas are making our daytime work safer. This weekend we want to make that true ‘out of hours’.
The countdown for Unity is gaining pace of course. The Pain and Gain sessions are developing a brand, and in a few days we start our Full Dress Rehearsal. We have a lot to practice and learn before we can go live with the new system, a system that gives us safer prescribing, and will, in the long run, save staff time because we won’t be recollecting lots of information. If you have not had your basic training, please get booked in. If you are booked in, please come along. If you think you have been forgotten, please speak up. Unity is all about working together to use technology to improve care, and that means you! Our Quality Improvement Half Day in March will kick off the 28-day challenge, which is designed to get us ready for a spring go-live. You know how soon that is if you have already booked your summer holiday, so please do not delay in talking with your colleagues and line manager about your needs to play your part.
Finally, February brings all sorts of new things. One of which in Sandwell is Fizz Free February. This is a borough wide campaign to cut out sugared drinks, especially for children and young people. As a Trust we took action on this issue as part of our Public Health plan in 2015, but we will be using the month to engage in education projects and to work with parents to promote the right nutrition, hydration, diet and exercise. Obesity in children is probably the biggest public health and inequality issue we face, and whilst this is just one step, it is an important one. Look out for more publicity from next week, and let’s do what we can to focus on health as well as illness. Working closely with schools is a constant and growing theme for us as we try to become more preventative in what we contribute to the local community. I am sure you will have ideas about what we could do, and, as ever, I would love to hear them.
I attach this week’s IT stats Informatics Data 25 Jan 19
#hellomynameisToby