Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 20 April

April 23, 2018

For the second time, this week, the Prime Minister has committed the government to the vital task of completing the Midland Metropolitan Hospital as quickly as possible.

This very welcome support comes alongside continued advocacy by John Spellar and James Morris MPs. At the top of my message today is a useful and clear film by local West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street that emphasises the urgency of getting on with building work.

To be clear, the Trust is working closely with banks, councillors and government to bring the situation closer to a conclusion. With the spring sunshine upon us, now is the time to get back on site and to prevent the damage to the building that inevitably arises with delay.

Although we cannot confirm a likely revised opening date you will appreciate from the media that if we can recommence work soon we believe that opening in 2020 is entirely possible.

I know everybody who works in and with our organisation appreciates that Midland Met is not about a new building replacing an old building, although clearly decent facilities are what we would all expect at work and for our loved ones care. Instead the new hospital is about improving quality by being able to recruit skilled staff and helping them to work together in a single team on a single acute site. We have a complex message therefore to share with our patients and the neighbours who live around us. Our current emergency care model is safe but quality would be significantly improved by the move to our new facility. And as time goes by it becomes progressively more difficult to sustain services on two sites, that is why senior clinicians have been working to look at our fall back options if for any reason the opening of the new hospital has to be delayed beyond 2020.

I participated this week in one of our accredited manager modules. You will remember that every line manager in our organisation is undergoing peer training and support with some key competencies including people management. This obligation applies to the executives and to first line managers as well. I was very struck during the workshop by how the continued uncertainty over the Midland Met and resultant difficult new media headlines impacted on morale. Even so I am convinced that it is right that we discuss the issues and difficulties openly and in public. Truth builds trust. And trust is at the heart of running public services or providing great clinical care. So if you have questions that you wish to ask about the new hospital please feel free to direct them to me or Alan Kenny in the first instance. All questions are good because it is important that all of us can explain the position that the collapse of Carillion has created for us. I reiterate the boards absolute promise that the additional cost of delay will not be borne by local NHS and therefore will not add to the already challenging cost improvement programmes that we have that I wrote about last week.

I know walking or driving past the Midland Met can produce a sense of frustration at delay. I would invite you instead to consider the fantastic facility that we will be working in in the years ahead on a scale and at a quality that we have not had in the past.

#hellomynameis….Toby