Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 2 February

February 2, 2024

First and foremost, I would like to start my message with a thank you to those of you who took the time to complete your Pulse survey, which closed on Wednesday. If you attended TeamTalk earlier this week, you would have heard our Interim Chief People Officer, James Fleet inform everyone that we have achieved a response rate of above 40 per cent. (If you didn’t get to TeamTalk and would like to watch the recording, it is available here).

I am really pleased with this, but I know some of you are wondering why there has been such a focus on the response rate, and that’s because the pulse surveys and the annual staff survey are one of biggest mechanisms we have as an organisation to see how you are all feeling, what works well, and most importantly what needs to be made better. A higher response rate gives us a much better set of data to work through and highlight key areas of focus.

You, our people, are at the centre of our “3 Ps” strategy, and we want to make SWB the best place for you to work. Once we receive the results of both the annual survey and the latest pulse survey, which is likely to be in the next few weeks, we will review them and produce tangible actions, based on what you have told us. These will be at both Trust and group level, they will be shared with you, and we will regularly inform you of our progress against them.

In March we will launch our People Engagement Groups, there will be one in each of the clinical groups, including corporate, and they will be chaired by the senior leadership teams, with opportunities for colleagues at all levels to get involved. James also touched on this in TeamTalk and we will bring you more information on these groups over the coming weeks.

One of the things that has impressed me since I have been chief executive of this organisation, has been the commitment to quality improvement. As you know, our QI poster contest is an annual programme, which is now in its 5th year.

There has been a good response with 37 entries submitted this year. This is less than previous years but remarkable given the operational pressures faced by frontline colleagues. The judges are currently reviewing the posters and will be in touch with shortlisted entrants at the beginning of February to invite them to an awards ceremony with the Trust Board on 13 March 2024.

You can get involved and vote online for their three favourite posters.  View and vote for your posters by clicking here.   Encourage your colleagues to do so too, there is a £500 prize for the poster that is voted most popular with staff.  Voting closes on Monday 5 February.

Finally, next week sees the launch of phase three of the Midland Met management of change process. If you have line management responsibility, you should have been invited to a meeting at 11.30am on Tuesday – if you have not received this invite, please e-mail emily.smith46@nhs.net and we will add you to our line manager distribution list.

This process is your opportunity to ask questions and raise any concerns you might have about changes being made for us to successfully and safely open Midland Met. The team has already pulled together an extensive list of FAQs which will be shared during the process, but feel free to ask more, no question is a silly question, and you just might come up with something that we haven’t thought of yet.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Richard