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Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 24 February

February 24, 2023

Midland Met Focus:

Delivery of the MMUH programme continues to progress well. When we set up the Midland Met programme company in October 2022, we established governance arrangements to ensure that a third of our public Trust board and Trust Management Committee meetings were focused on the preparation for the new hospital and community services transformation. In light of this, I have committed to focusing a third of my Friday messages to Midland Met so that, alongside all the regular communications activity around the new hospital, my Friday message can also become a source of news and updates.

It was a pleasure to meet local residents this week at the George Dixon Academy School. We were able to share information about the hospital development with them, but, more importantly, to listen to them about their questions, concerns and ideas for how they can be better involved and informed. This meeting was one of three that we are holding over the next few weeks, focused on those people who live within one mile of the new hospital site. It was very well attended, and we are asked many questions.  Being a good neighbour is a priority to us and we cannot underestimate the impact of the many years of building work that has been taking place in close proximity to houses and local businesses.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the planning we were doing to engage with partners across the Black Country and Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Systems about Midland Met. I am really pleased to share the positive response we have had from those key stakeholders, all of whom recognise the significance of the new hospital, the impact it will have on our patients, people and population, and the need for support as we progress towards opening. Without exception, all partners can see how the new hospital will support improved care for our patients, as well as contribute to the strategies and objectives of the health and care systems.

At the start of the year all of you were invited to spend a few minutes completing the quarterly Pulse staff survey. As you know, this is a requirement on all NHS Trusts and is a really valuable tool for us in understanding how you feel about your job and our organisation. For the first time, we included two questions relating to the new hospital. It is reassuring to see from the results that 90% of you are aware of the new hospital. In terms of the impact of Midland Met on your role and service, the understanding is not so high. This is something we will be working to address as we continue to share updates about the development, and importantly, how your role can contribute to the safe opening of the hospital in 2024.

If you want to know more then do look at the regular information that is shared through the new internal newsletter that was first published last Friday, our Connect Midland Met pages or our social media accounts. Where you have questions and concerns please let us know by emailing swbh.mmuh@nhs.net. We will continue to publish regular FAQs and will let you know if we don’t know the answers just yet.

Thank you for all you are doing to find out about the new hospital and prepare for changes within your team and service. Your future work base may not be at the new hospital but the opportunities it provides to transform services for the better will impact on us all and we need to make time to get ready.