Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 26 March
March 26, 2021
Some big changes ahead as Engie continue their final preparations to become the provider for much of our estates services from 5 April. My thanks to everyone involved in this transition. I recognise that the change has been unsettling for the many people who now have a new employer. May I assure you that the estates colleagues transferring over remain very much a part of the SWB Trust family as we are one team supporting and delivering care for our patients. And the Engie team have much to offer their new colleagues in terms of career and team development opportunities as well as bringing a wealth of experience and knowledge in the estates management field.
Next week we see a change to urgent care offered at Sandwell as the Trust takes on the activity from the former Parsonage Street Urgent Treatment Centre (Walk-in Centre). For an interim period from 1 April, while work continues to create the centre in the Sandwell outpatient area, patients with urgent care needs will attend the Sandwell Emergency Department entrance where they will be assessed and directed towards the clinical rooms for treatment. The service is GP-led and open 8am to 8pm seven days a week.
A reminder to attend your second vaccine dose appointments as the Sandwell Hospital Hub reopened earlier this week. Please make sure you know when your appointment is so that we make the most of the booking slots and available vaccines. First dose appointments can still be booked at other centres – details in the COVID-19 bulletin.
Congratulations to this week’s star of the week, Luke Priest, nominated by his colleagues for his enthusiasm and professionalisms. Luke started as a Healthcare Assistant on McCarthy ward at Rowley Regis Hospital at the end of October 2020 and has demonstrated his caring and compassionate nature with lots of positive patient feedback. His team have commented on how much they enjoy working with him. Luke has taken on some additional shifts as a COVID-19 Liaison Officer offering vital support to help patients and relatives keep in touch. Thank you, Luke, for your commitment and dedication.
You’ve all no doubt had your heads down like everyone else of late, pushing through the working day, doing the best you can to deliver care and support your colleagues. The national news, if you are anything like me, can often wash over your head at the moment, with it being still almost endlessly COVID or COVID vaccine related. Even if the news of the new government White Paper on the future of the NHS and social care in England has reached your consciousness, then you are likely to not have taken much notice, principally because structural and policy change in the NHS is a frequent cycle of events and because how the NHS is managed isn’t often a point of great interest or debate.
Despite the above, I am keen to get a couple of key elements of the White Paper across to you, through the lens of what it will mean for us in Sandwell & West Birmingham NHS Trust.
Firstly, the autonomy of NHS Trusts and NHS Foundation Trust is definitely waning. The legislation clips our wings because it is introducing a “system by default” mantra and forming “Integrated Care Systems” which will have all of the authority to allocate resources, make big decisions about service change or provision and do what is “best for the system” as opposed to what is “best for a Trust”. Locally, our system is Black Country & West Birmingham, so we now must discuss and agree approaches to resourcing and delivering health services with other organisations and around the principle of “the greater good”, as opposed to organisational self interest. We must now worry as much about Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton as places, just as they must worry about Sandwell, Ladywood and Perry Barr. How all this will play itself out when there are disagreements, is still anybody’s guess, given the detail on how independent Trusts play into this, has yet to emerge. One thing is for sure, the previous approach to assuming one organisation would take work off another and make money from doing so, have come to an end.
Secondly, the legislation mandates NHS Trusts to collaborate with one another to deliver better care for patients, as opposed to competing with each other for work. This is a good thing. The Black Country in particular, has a lot of acute hospitals in a very small geographical area. None of them, not even the two which we manage, are big enough to sustainably deliver high quality 7 day services to a consistent standard everywhere. Workforce shortages in most professions, compound this, leaving us all competing for staff in a pool which, no matter which way you cut it, is too small to service demand. The Black Country & West Birmingham has over 1.5 million residents, yet precious few specialist services, because none of the Trusts have worked well with each other to integrate their workforce to deliver them.
This has to change. To that end, our Trust has started to participate openly and transparently in a new collaboration with the other acute hospital Trusts in our system. Our aim? To improve service resilience, tackle workforce challenges, develop specialist services and standardise care to national best practice. Sessions will be held this summer in which our senior clinical colleagues will get their chance to influence what our system priorities should be for change. We will then move quickly to make those changes with you, for the benefit of the whole population in our system.
Have a good weekend, colleagues
Richard