Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 13 March
March 13, 2020
I emailed everyone who works in the organisation yesterday to say thank you for your hard work during the first phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic. We are entering a new phase where our beds, ability to operate, and models of isolation will be changing rapidly. To reiterate my message of yesterday please familiarise yourself with the Trust’s plans. The headline for that plan remains a focus on kindness during difficult times with worried colleagues, visitors and patients anxious for information and advice.
Tomorrow at midday we will cease allowing visitors into our ward areas; a decision taken on Thursday morning and notified to give advance warning, albeit with specified exceptions. From Monday not only will very little planned surgery take place, but many outpatient appointments will start to be re-booked on a video or phone basis. In the Frequently Asked Questions document we issued with yesterday’s COVID e-bulletin we outlined how we would approach home and remote working for staff. That is not yet our applied plan unless you need to self-isolate. The guidance for that from Public Health England changes regularly and you need to make sure you are up to date – please focus most on symptoms and exposure, not simply country of travel.
We are beginning to see positive test results for the virus and my thanks to those who are calmly and thoughtfully looking after our patients. Every person is different and whilst nationwide media will report numbers we need to talk about individuals. The Prime Minister made clear yesterday the likely impact of COVID-19 on many communities, and I would hope you are able not only to think about our plans at work but also now to focus on home and on neighbours. As we move into social distancing it is really important that we support people in our street or building who may need us as help or as friends, even remotely or through barriers. The community response to this virus will be as important as the clinical one if we are to be among the countries with a 1% not a 4% mortality rate.
Star of the week continues! Ed Fogden (consultant GI physician) was nominated for his work and support of wellbeing work among our doctors in training. The Trust is doing some relatively ground-breaking work on rest and on psychological support, as well as our wider yoga and relaxation initiatives. I am sure there will be much more to say on that in future, but Ed’s sponsorship of that work and support for them was called out by colleagues and so he is today’s lucky winner.
The countdown to the University Hospital at Midland Met also continues. This week our fantastic public fundraising campaign launched. We are already over 30% of the way towards our £2.5m target. Heartbeat as always contains details of people’s efforts to raise money, whether it is Amber Markham on this month’s back page, or next month’s reveal of the combined plans of the Trust’s executive leaders!
This week both Dinah Mclannahan and Martin Sadler were successful in being appointed substantively as directors of the Trust. Martin has led our IT stabilisation work since last year, and Dinah has moved from her deputy role, through an acting position, into the Board role of Chief Finance Officer. The NHS Long Term Plan demands a long term view of financial risk and return, and thoughtful management of how we invest up front in prevention. I hope you will join me in wishing both new hires every success.
I was delighted that today’s Quality Improvement Half Day saw the launch of the Learning GEMS “product”. Getting our learning arrangements to be effective in the Trust is about more than training or courses: It also about how we create and share knowledge and insight across our organisation. Shout Outs celebrate individual endeavours and GEMS are closely allied to that, looking to understand what has been learnt from a project or change. For a long time we have talked about lessons from error and from excellence and I am hopeful that there is much to share from the latter through the GEMs work. QIHD time itself is a great chance to polish those GEMS, and the first actual QIHD league table is now out. Unlike in sport, everyone can come first, so going for Gold is entirely possible. Our silver QIHD teams typically have great attendance, multi–professional involvement, and a plan for future improvement work. I know it is not easy to do any of that, but I am also delighted so many teams are getting into that habit. And yes, in April and May it may be that QI becomes a temporarily virtual activity….(keep an eye on our Covid bulletins).
While I am sharing better news, some of our teams are doing outstandingly well on our current audit on cannula documentation and discharge checklists. This work unashamedly comes from an unfortunate incident, but it also links directly to the need to make sure that our underlying Safety Culture is precise and accurate. Even if some QI work is stood down, a focus on safety basics is even more vital right now. Inserting or removing a cannula should be documented, timed and reviewed. In some of our stronger teams that is already an embedded approach – so Shout Out to D6, D19, Lyndon Ground, D21, D47, McCarthy, and especially Newton 3 for leading the way.