Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 1 June
June 1, 2018
Thank you to everyone who worked over the bank holiday last, and to those who have had to work long hours, or change how or where they work, associated with our IT infrastructure difficulties this week at Sandwell. The problems re-confirm that we have huge ingenuity and resilience, but that we have to resolve once and for all our infrastructure difficulties. The Board had required us to do that a certain period of time before Unity deployment and as such I would expect in the next ten days to have a revised date for Unity deployment linked to work we are doing on IT infrastructure. External experts will join our teams in coming days to provide both capacity in the face of the scale of the challenge, and knowledge.
A complete change freeze on our IT is now in operation. This reflects concern that a number of the more recent IT outages reflects unanticipated difficulties arising either from planned works or unplanned activities. Of course a change freeze will mean that other IT aims and goals have some governance to go through and may progress more slowly on occasion. Please do not let that stop you either raising problems with IT or coming up with solutions which rely on IT. Digital is part of our future state. Your feedback from last month’s Team Talk discussion topic was very clear – that Unity, once you have seen it, will help us provide care and help us improve outcomes. In a different guise you may have seen our new MyConnect product, which uses digital technology to help us communicate internally.
Next week is Dietetics Week, not only in the Trust, but more widely. Do get involved if you can with details in daily communications. We have done a huge amount of work internally over the last eighteen months on the food we provide to patients, to out of hours staff, and that available in our outlets too. Faced with an obesity crisis locally which is probably our main public health challenge as a locality, we must be interested not just in what is best but in how we influence behaviour. That is where our skilled experts play a key role and we need to think through the balance of knowledge between what all care workers need to know to support Making Every Contact Count, and what is reserved for a small central team. At the same time, next week is Occupational Health’s first week in their new space at Sandwell. Doubling the size and scale of the department reflects their huge value to the organisation, not just over flu, but also their reach beyond our boundaries providing contracts across much of the Black Country.
This month’s TeamTalk is now out and I hope that the cascade is improving. There is an emphasis on the work we need to do to tackle sepsis. And thank yous to everyone involved in getting so many Personal Development Reviews booked since April. There is also a thank you for those who will by the end of next week have cleared our incident reporting backlog. Incident reports are a hugely important source of data on risk and difficulties. The Trust does use this data to change things big and small. At the same time our emphasis on Speak Up makes clear that your voice is vital to that change effort. If you have chance to watch my short Team Talk film you will see data on what almost 900 staff have told us about speaking up. If you read my column in Heartbeat you will also see reference to work we are doing to ensure the anonymity of those raising concerns where that is their request. I want to be totally blunt: It is unacceptable for anyone working in our Trust to criticise or reproach someone for raising concerns or for doing so at a senior level. This is not a new message but I would like it heard clearly in all layers of management and leadership. Speaking Up saves lives and makes a difference.
I do appreciate that I am appearing currently in multiple news outlets over Midland Met and without definitive news. It frustrates me, and I am sure you too. That advocacy is likely to continue as we try to move things forward over coming weeks, with good support from politicians and leaders in all political parties. Our plan to move the project forward via the present Hospital Company was not agreed last month, and as such we are moving towards new plans as quickly as we can. When we complete Midland Met will obviously depend when we re-start building work. In the meantime, the Board and Clinical Leadership Executive are focused on the right configuration of acute services from 2019 to 2022 which best ensures safe care and a sustainable working model for staff. We have good support from partners and funders to take the steps necessary to ensure that the considerable delay to Midland Met does not adversely affect outcomes or quality.
Finally, some of you will have noticed that the Trust appeared in this week’s league table for our financial results at year end – with us coming in the top 20 in the country. This is not why any us come to work but it is a vital indicator of future stability. It also allows us to invest and to make choices and changes. I am pleased that this week we were for example able to confirm an expansion in our workforce in Critical Care as we look to provide even better services in coming months. It is important that we invest when services are struggling but also that our best performers get support with ideas and innovation. Critical Care, which rated so highly with the CQC, falls into that latter category and I know that Nick Sherwood will be moving quickly to secure the very best talent to join the expanded team.
#hellomynameis….Toby