Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 3 January
January 3, 2020
Another decade over and a new year begun! On Wednesday I launched a short film which tries to describe how the Trust goes forward in the next twelve months and also how that work fits into the longer term strategy of the organisation and the wider NHS. Our emphasis on fighting poverty and developing wealth, learning and enterprise will only grow in the months ahead. Midland Met represents a wonderful flagship idea for that mission but the work we start soon on exercise, diet and mental wellbeing is equally central to our Public Health priorities.
On Saturday January 18th we have our latest nursing and midwifery recruitment event. It was clear at yesterday’s Trust Board meeting at Rowley Regis that we still can end the 2019-2020 year in March having halved our vacancies in the last year. 35 nursing associates join us very soon (with over 100 more coming) and I wrote last week about the changes we have made to HCA pay and conditions to try and ensure that there is a clear escalator from joining us at band 2 to the top of the registered pay scale. Next week we recruit, indeed, to our deputy chief nurse role to support the outstanding group of directors of nursing and midwifery we have in our clinical groups: Thank you Helen, Julie, Cheryl, Diane and Nicky.
Education and learning remain at the very heart of what we do. That is why we have trebled our training budget in the last five years and are investing in the current postgraduate centre at City to bring it closer to the standard of the Education Centre for the Trust that is based at Sandwell. Simulation – as a route to insight and learning – remains really important and more investment is planned there too. We have not yet set budgets for next year but are exploring how we make sure that more of our funded time to learn is devoted to communication and human factors training. That is because when we look at successes and at error we find that these issues are the root and common thread. The QIHD schedule for 2020-2021 is imminent and I would encourage gold, silver (and all other) teams to think through whether some of your time in those sessions would benefit from a structured training programme of this type.
Of course 2020 sees our first clinical placements from Aston Medical School. Those students will join our Birmingham cadre as we hope to teach the doctors of the future and to retain more of those people in our system in the long term. By deliberately recruiting medical students from less traditional or privileged backgrounds we explicitly address the vision and mission of the organisation to support our local communities, both with understanding and insight. Thank you in advance to everyone involved in the considerable preparatory work required to be ready for our first intake. It’s a huge moment for healthcare in the West Midlands and something that we should be very proud of.
The Queen’s latest honours saw an MBE awarded to our own Professor Liz Hughes. For many years Liz has been at the forefront of medical education at the Trust, the region, and nationally with Health Education England. This is terrific recognition for service and success. I know that Liz is passionate about new models of working and new roles and so will support the work being done now by our Human Resource Business Partners to shape such change plans for our 200 or so Hard-to -Fill job roles across the organisation. Whether it is Doctors’ Associates, Assistant Practitioner roles, or the use of technology including AI, we know we need to do more as a Trust to attract and retain colleagues into less traditional disciplines.
Perhaps especially in the depths of winter or the optimistic euphoria of starting a year there is a risk that the balance swings too much either way between challenges and positivity. We need to juggle both realistically. It was helpful to understand from the Board the work being done to address the three Never Events that we experienced earlier in 2019. The detailed audit work we will do in February will tell us our site marking, swab counting and equipment checking is up to scratch.
Similarly we have a focus on medication errors and risks in the months ahead, with Electronic Prescribing creating both opportunities and risks. We are making progress with endorsing results, the backlog of which over many years was an area of under-acknowledged risk, and likewise we are investing to address waiting lists and administrative issues in BMEC which could create errors and harm. Reminding ourselves that most of the Trust is rated as Good by the CQC does not mean that everything is easy or rosy and I know how much work goes into maintaining those standards, and to helping our three Requires Improvement services (medical wards, paediatrics and ED) to match or exceed the work done elsewhere in our organisation.
This message does not repeat what I said in our 2020 film. Do take a look when you get chance. Sometimes changes that happen here are a surprise to colleagues, when they have long been considered. And of course knowing what is coming gives you a chance to shape and improve it. Around 700,000 people locally rely on us and on primary care colleagues to run the best NHS that the West Midlands has to offer. As we consider what our plans are for 2025 – or even 2030 – that is very much the sort of ambition that we share and that I hope makes working here a privilege.