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Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 21 June

June 21, 2019

From October Heartbeat and payslips will go electronic in our Trust. That’s part of our move to make our work digital. By then most letters we issue will go via email to GPs. And we will be almost there with our fax machine retirement programme. Unity is due to be implemented from 23 September, with cutover the prior weekend, and technical go live in the prior fortnight. So we are less than 100 days from change. Of course most staff-relevant systems are easily accessible on your mobile phone, include the Electronic Staff Record. Sign up to myConnect – search SWBH myConnect on Google Playstore or the Apple App Store.

I know people are awaiting next week’s guidance on leave allowances for the go-live period!  Meanwhile, worth focusing on the Big Five readiness criteria. Here goes:

  • We have a Trust level set of criteria which we will use at the Board on 6 September to reconfirm permission to go live…
  • Almost everyone is now Unity trained. We have 217 people who are outstanding. You will be contacted over coming days to help you to arrange to do that in July.
  • With the Unity 28-Day Challenge came an individual Unity competency checklist (It’s All About U). That needs to be done and counter signed by your manager. Next week we will publish the names of those who need to get that done. 10 per cent have so far, so there’s leg work to do. It is ok if you do not feel confident and competent yet on Unity – that’s why we need to know now!
  • There is then a team readiness checklist which local managers are working through. Overall we have about 55 per cent of our assurances in place, enroute to 90 per cent plus. Current work to sort out our Wi-Fi (Rowley Regis passed) will make a big difference.
  • Finally, we are working on team simulation assurances for ten specific key clinical interactions, such as handover. More guidance will come out on that next week.

It is two weeks to our smokefree change. Big thanks to everyone working hard to make sure that we are ready. New signs up, new training in place for colleagues asked to help us monitor and enforce this ban, and new shelters for vaping.  The biggest changes however are in how we interact with patients. It will be easy to get hold of Nicotine Replacement Therapy, or inhalers, and of vaping e-cigs. If you are reading this and are unaware how to do that where you work, please get in touch with me. The ban is not about showing off our values. The ban is about helping persuade, cajole, and incentivise people to make a life changing health move. So the ban is a success not if we can stop vile smells floating through the Lyndon Ground windows, or end the pile of butts in the bus shelter outside Rowley Regis, but if colleagues (as very many have) and patients and their loved ones, see an NHS determined to help them to save money and save their health by quitting.

On Monday, each clinical group will join David Carruthers and me to review their plans to deliver in 2019 and 2020 our Trust quality plan. In the main we are looking at outcomes so that we are among the best 20 per cent in the country. For a handful of outcomes we would settle now for the best 20 per cent in the Midlands.  Either way, the plan is a step up for patients and a step up in expectations.  Most of the investments we make as a Trust in the next six months will be in plans and proposals associated with the quality plan.  So it is worth you getting familiar with the promises within the plan.  Heartbeat this month has an article from me that focuses just on this topic. Remember new IT with Unity, and a new hospital with Midland Met, are just inputs. Important, overdue, much needed – but just the things you would expect a modern health system to have. What counts is what works – and that is what the quality plan is all about. Finding ways to get better results:

  • Since 2016 our teams have halved still births in the Trust
  • Since 2018 we have reduced comparative death rates by around half of the improvement goal
  • Last week 97 per cent of sepsis alert patients were screened (25 per cent a year ago).

So if you are reading this message and wondering if anything ever changes, if there is a disconnect between your hard work and our collective success, if you are wondering why we are doing hard things on smoking, or introducing electronic prescribing with Unity, then please take heart:  Our organisation, which is your organisation, should be very proud not just of our efforts but of our results in improving care.

Yesterday we hosted both our Annual General Meeting, reporting back on 2018/19, and a Stroke Symposium designed to focus attention on improvements we want to make in diagnosis, care and rehabilitation from strokes. Looking back I was struck by what we can learn from our serious incidents. The welearn project has captured plenty of attention and energy as we move towards introducing Learning from Excellence and as the QIHD accreditation deadline looms. We know that there are systematic issues we need to address if we are to reduce incident likelihood, and tackle results acknowledgement, so that those ordering investigations see and act on the outcome – this is a key step for us. I was delighted by the positive comments from those attending the AGM on most services – and pleased we could confirm plans to invest in the BMEC environment too.

On Monday we launch our 2019 welearn Poster Contest. The deadline is November, so people have many weeks to identify topics, write up or complete studies, and be ready. This is the biggest prize in the Trust with a £5,000 top award. Get in touch with Preeti Puligari if you want to know more.

Attached are this week’s IT stats: IT Performance Stats 21 June 2019

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