Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 6 September

September 6, 2019

Congratulations to the FINCH team on their 10 year anniversary and event last weekend and good luck to our cricket team this coming Sunday trying to keep the streak going in the battle with local GPs. I am looking to not be run out for the third year running! The annual bike ride is coming to a conclusion – having made it coast to coast. Congratulations to Ian Hawthorn for his drive in making this fine tradition a continued success.

On Tuesday this week we successfully changed all of our IT connections to the world beyond SWBH. We now have 5 GB connections, giving us about 40-50% ‘headroom’ on what we use at peak, and a massively reduced likelihood of a repeat of the N3 outages we experienced in 2017 and 2018. This is just one of 14 massive technical changes accomplished in the Trust since January. With our PACs upgrade coming, and doubtless more to do on Winscribe, the job is not yet done. Before Christmas we would expect almost all patient and GP communication to be going in/out electronically, and of course by then the fax retirement party will be in full swing. Pulse already is giving over 500 colleagues routinely good off site access to our systems. On Monday we publish on Connect our Wi-Fi hot spot diagrams, which show you why we believe we can say with confidence that our Wi-Fi is working – if you work in resus in Sandwell ED we have not forgotten you and will solve the problem! Yesterday we switched on public free Wi-Fi on the back of the work done since June to reboot our connections.

Yesterday the Board considered go-live for Unity. The Clinical Safety Case to confirm how the product will work, and any hazards around that was approved. That left us to discuss whether we go live in September or November. We were confident of the technical readiness faced, albeit I know that some device concerns remain to be tested, including work in NICU.

The Board considered carefully evidence of training, simulation, and rota compliance. We were left with some outstanding questions which we are seeking to answer over the next five days. I would expect to confirm on Thursday next week which date will be finally used. It remains possible, indeed arguably probable, that we will go live in September. Doing so will depend on completing the same list of training that I wrote to you about on 19 August:

300 staff will today receive a note from Raffaela Goodby asking you to complete your 90 minute Capman training over the next five days. Thank you to everyone else who has done this already.
Many gold and silver teams have completed your five simulations through UniTeam and been signed off. Some have not. That work too must be completed in the next five days.
Finally, we have some super users, not just those rostered over the go-live fortnight who are yet to finish their three-day training. Super users are critical to both go-live and returning to normal working from 7 October. So there is a big push to ensure that our super users are ready.

In many ways the NHS is used to crisis, and there is bound to be a belief that we will ‘muddle through’ a Unity go-live. Neither I, nor the wider Board, believe that we should take that approach. An IT deployment should be based on sound preparation. We need now to make sure that those people who have not yet completed the preparation that most people have done get themselves ready, so that all of us can work safely and our patients’ needs are met. I appreciate many people are busy, have been on leave, or have faced barriers to getting training and testing done. We need to face forward – and please now take the steps to support your colleagues by matching the readiness of most of our teams.

On Wednesday next week, we have our latest Speak Up day. The repetition of this format is deliberate. The NHS as a whole, and we are no different, has a tendency to modish enthusiasms – initiatives that happen, prosper, and then fade. The habit of openness and transparency matters in our Trust. I hope it matters to you, and for sure it matters to the Chairman and wider Board, including me. Sometimes openness creates difficulties or adverse headlines, as with our recent maternity learning enquiry, and sometimes it means that my reports to our Board are copy for the newspapers. But what it is intended to be is an organisation where we challenge the accuracy of our data, where we alert one another to risks and dangers, and where we take action to manage either perception or reality. One such recent change is the frontline shift leaders reporting on potential harms when we are short staffed. I want to thank those submitting that information both for your honesty, and for the ingenuity to find solutions that some of the responses show. Paula Gardner will share with the Board in October an analysis for the first two months of this data, and publish guidance for team leaders based on the best practice shown within it. Of course, our recruitment efforts continue, and I am delighted that many long term bank staff have already accepted offers of permanent employment at the Trust.

I know some colleagues will have scrutinised the Chancellor’s statement on Wednesday for signs of Midland Met contract approval. We were not expecting it, but are expecting it in coming weeks. Balfour are poised and ready to be on site in earnest from December 2019: A start date consistent with opening Midland Met in June 2022, if not sooner. From the start of 2020 we will work to optimise the new hospital – in other words to plan how we will really work within it. That is not just a question of moving in, but of moving on what we do; to give a real example, the new hospital will see us make patient-led meal preparation much more normal, indeed our norm. That is why the kitchens are organised to help with that, as we look to make sure that our patients are mobilised and supported wherever that is possible. It’s one example of many, and once we have optimised Unity, we need to prepare in detail for optimising the big move too.

Finally, notwithstanding the hurricane presently harming the Bahamas and elsewhere in the Caribbean, many colleagues will be concerned by the present appalling humanitarian situation in Kashmir. Our Trust benefits from many employees who originate themselves, and through their family, from the region. With humanity about leave requests and sensitivity to peoples’ distress, I hope that those involved are able to continue at work, and to speak up if there is anything that the Trust can do to assist.

Attached are this week’s IT stats: IT Performance Stats 6 September 2019

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