Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 13 September
September 13, 2019
Yesterday I was able to confirm that we have met the conditions that we set to Go Live with Unity from Saturday 21 September. There is plenty of work to do before we do, and you undoubtedly can play a part by your actions in reducing the risks from the cut-over. We have a fortnight, no more, to implement the changes to our IT systems, and to then be working at the pace and with the precision that we are now. Implementing Unity, first and foremost, means we have the tools to provide safer care through electronic prescribing, and more efficient clinical administration through reducing duplication and better recorded clinical records. Whilst many colleagues have focused on the go-live date, I would ask you to focus too on 7 October. That is the Monday when we need to ‘return to a (new) normal’. With your training, your colleagues as digital champions, and super users, and with our temporary floor walkers there too to help, we have a few days and nights to start working with the new system and making it work to improve care. Every department has a go-live guide where you work (contact Lydia Jones if yours has gone walkabout). Tap & Go is ready for you to log into – meaning when we go live it will take seconds to get you into Unity.
Before, during, and after Unity go-live, life goes on. On Wednesday I issued a call for votes for our Star Awards, even as we took part in Speak Up Day. Please do register your vote. https://connect2.swbh.nhs.uk/communications/star-awards/star-awards-voting/
At the same time we met with teams across haematology, gastroenterology and respiratory medicine to talk through November’s ward reconfiguration. That is part of the long march to Midland Met – and our promise to make sure that you know now the route to jobs and roles in the new hospital. The reconfiguration is about making sure we have the beds to manage winter this year and getting us ready for the return of oncology services in 2020 on the Sandwell site.
Speak Up Day was, as ever, an energising experience. We wanted to continue to promote our Managers’ Code of Conduct. This is about good practice, about poor behaviours, and about how we tackle offence and misconception in the moment. A big, and let’s face it stressful change, like Unity go-live is a perfect chance to practice just those habits. The go-live decision indicates that our readiness preparations have passed muster. But with such a complex change it is bound to be the case that things go awry. As we all tire and in the midst of that complexity, we need to encourage, problem solve and help each other to get the best from the system, and from the support around us. This is not an “IT project”. Unity is a change in how we practice care. Its success will depend on how we adapt our working to the system our clinical leaders chose in 2017, and have tweaked since.
In early October we get started again with our Flu Vaccination Campaign. The Board is jabbed early, on 3 October. I know that the vast majority of colleagues appreciate the necessity for vaccination and the merit of getting jabbed early in the cycle. I would encourage team leaders to think now about the campaign, so that we weave it into our working lives in early October even as we manage the changes that Unity will bring. The Trust usually is the best in the Midlands at flu vaccination, and we want to keep that primacy and hegemony in the interests of public health and staff wellbeing.
On Tuesday we welcomed the Chief Executive of Public Health England to the Trust. Duncan Selbie came to listen to nurses, security staff, doctors and trade union leaders about our smokefree Campaign. The focus on vaping, the work we have done to promote cessation classes and the simple honesty of our ‘red line’ message has been so far effective in creating a safer, cleaner environment across our sites. I know many other NHS Trusts are looking at our model. Meanwhile we need to keep up our work, and make sure there is no complacency. In the last fortnight regrettably our first fines have been issued to some colleagues who have smoked on site. That is an early warning that we need to reiterate our common values and be clear that it is unacceptable to smoke anywhere on Trust property, and we want to help everyone tempted to smoke to find a better workplace alternative.
We also presented to PHE the work being done across the Trust to tackle alcohol misuse. Our Friends and Family group is helping to manage addiction and we now have AA groups on our sites too. We will be making investments to develop our alcohol team into a 7 day basis and to support off site detox facilities. Whilst smoking is still the commonest cause of avoidable death in our communities, alcohol remains the commonest underlying cause of admission to hospital. We are working with partners to introduce some of the toughest licensing laws anywhere in England to try and tackle to cumulative harm of cheap booze and multiple outlets. The Trust will be formally responding to the Sandwell Council Licensing Policy consultation which closes on 18 October, and if you wish to add your voice to that response, click through the link www.sandwell.gov.uk/licensing_consultation. We make a difference through the care we offer, but we can be part of the change before anyone needs our care.
We cannot always succeed, and last weekend our cricket team was vanquished by local GPs. In truth we took a beating. Maybe it is time to look forward to the rugby world cup in Japan, and we will make arrangements to get games screened each morning where we can. Look out for our strategy on obesity in late October as we work to create exercise and wellbeing opportunities across the Trust – complete with free gyms at City as well as Sandwell!
Attached are this week’s IT stats: IT Performance Stats 13 September
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