Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 15 May
May 15, 2020
This week has seen not one but two celebrations of disciplines in our Trust, with ODP day on Thursday, and International Nurses’ Day on May 12th. I know that there were all sorts of cake sales, and songs, and commemorations across our sites, and in community teams as well. At a time when clapping and words like heroes are widely used, these days are in fact an opportunity to celebrate peer esteem. The credit from our patients and communities matters, but these days are a chance for colleagues to say to theatre staff and to the whole nursing family – thank you.
Next week is Mental Health Awareness week across the UK. This year the nominated theme is Kindness. Kindness has also been the aim we set in developing our response to Covid-19 through Operation Mary Seacole. Next week then is an ideal time to consider whether the sanctuary is for you – I have had wonderful feedback this week from people who visited it at the Learning Works near Midland Met. Or a chance to log onto the Recharge Booth for 20 minutes on a Thursday. We share a story, talk about it, provide a little space to breathe and make sure feelings are voiced and shared and understood. Thank you to all who came forward as mental health first aiders – we will need your help in the weeks and months ahead. In ten days’ time, at the Clinical Leadership Executive, we turn our attention to how we develop broader and more accessible psychological support for our patients, recognising the need to look after the whole of someone, and support them with their beliefs and behaviours, as well as with curative treatments. I very much hope that Covid-19 has created a lasting acceptability to talking openly about mental wellbeing at work. Of course, often in traumatic situations the impact can felt by you from things going on at home, or by those you live with from your experiences. We are finalising a proposal for a support service to help address family members’ mental wellbeing this year and next.
Openness remains too at the heart of how we are trying to address the pandemic. Next Friday we will hold a review meeting with senior staff from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds to look through the evidence and risk assessments to consider how best we approach staffing arrangements during June, July and August. It is already the case that any colleague from a BAME background can request, and indeed insist, on a new risk assessment of their work status either through HR on 3116 or direct to me as sponsor of our BME staff network. David Carruthers and I will be hosting the forthcoming session to co-design with colleagues what approach we need to take, as we move into a time where we are both managing Covid-19 and implementing the Restoration Plan to re-open some services in May, some services in June, and most services in July.
I want to thank any of you who have, since the outset of Covid-19, spoken up, or raised concerns and questions. I believe we have a culture where that is possible and encouraged without reproach. I have had a flurry of concerns voiced to me this week about Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). As you know from Mark Anderson’s videos, putting on and taking off, handwashing and wider infection control is at least as important as masks. However, this is both/and not either/or. We have broadly two streams of PPE – nationally purchased and locally sourced. The locally sourced is the alpha stream. Those masks are generally well regarded by you (and inside date) bar one box of Beta-fit masks, which had an expired date and were therefore re-tested for filter quality and passed. You will know that the national stockpile contained past use by date masks issued in March, and a review by Public Health England confirmed their fitness for use despite some expired dates. We undertook our own review on arrival here of the FFP3 and they passed our tests as well. Accordingly, if you have used one and have experienced concerns, we will work with you on the fit. Whilst I understand expiry dates are a salient thing on the side of the box, we set our store by the testing of the masks that we have done. Please do contact Dinah, Paula or myself if you have specific questions or queries.
Pictured is our Star of the Week, Beata. I remember meeting her at the outset of Operation Mary Seacole down at Leasowes. We talked about how the centre was changing to become our end of life care hub, why we were changing and what that meant, both for patients and their loved ones, and for our teams. The service supported by a local GP practice, and has gone from having two palliative care beds to over 20 rooms. Our vision was that, allied to our Outstanding rated End of Life Care service we would seek to create as positive an environment as possible for those we are caring for, with as much personalised care as social distance allows, in a calm and suitable environment. We will be reviewing in June how the changes have gone as part of what-next with Restoration. The families of those we have looked after, and the teams involved, will play a part in that review. We very much want to be able to set out what the future looks like for these services, remembering that in our 2020 Quality Plan we set some ambitious goals about choice and dignity at end of life. They remain our aims.
You may be reading that last paragraph having looked after someone isolated from their loved ones in their final days. Some of the hardest and most heart rending stories to date from this situation have been just that. I know you are working hard to find ways to connect patients with their loved ones, by video, or by selected visiting. Bearing in mind the lockdown and test/trace position, we are keeping under constant review our visiting policies in this domain. The Board on June 4th is examining the subject, under Tammy Davies’ leadership, and discussing family stories from some of the deaths that have taken place in our care. I expect to be able to set out the way ahead thereafter. Thank you to Kulwinder Johal and the team in our mortuary and bereavement services for all the work you have done during Covid-19, and thanks too from the local Muslim Burial Council whose gratitude for the compassion of that work has been shared with you but should be acknowledged here.
Much is ‘up in the air’ right. Part way between school re-opening, hairdressers still shut, SPA time paused, QIHDs proceeding, scans starting in the Treatment Centre, but other services still off-site. One group for whom those dilemmas are very real is to the over 400 of our colleagues at home, some shielding and others working at home. Yesterday over 250 people joined us in a webex to explore their experiences of that, and talk about the future of home-based working. I was delighted that most reported improved wellbeing and many that they felt properly connected to the Trust at a distance. I am conscious that this was a temporary move, and that many of those working from home right now have worked on site for some time and have the advantage of knowing colleagues and systems. On May 27th we will revise our WFH to cover the period to the end of July, and over the next fortnight we have sharp work to do with our health and safety team to look across all our office environments (in the first instance) and test them against new national guidance. I expect our next guidance will be more directive about who does and does not work from home and more assertive in ensuring those who do have the kit and support they need. Then in June we plan to launch our three year home working plans to build on what has been learnt in the last ten weeks, conscious that spaces like the Midland Met are hot-desk only.
So, without rushing, we want to seize a moment. For many who have worked from home, losing the commute is no hardship. And cars pile back on the roads that sense deepens. I was delighted that our non-executive director, and local council cabinet member in Birmingham Waseem Zaffar, has launched the Emergency Birmingham Transport Plan. Health, and this trust, are at the heart of that plan with its new cycle options to city hospital, renovation of the Dudley road, and implication about how we extend those projects to the University Hospital ready for 2022. With the sun out, please do look again at your travel options, as I am, and think about what place cycling, or with future law changes, e-scooters, could offer you as a healthy, and safe, mode of travel just some of the week. A note of possibility, not optimism, as all of us think about the future, and make sure in the present that we have space, time, and support to consider our best mental wellbeing at work and at home.
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