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Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 19 April

April 19, 2024

Our Trust has “got a lot on”.  We face, like all trusts, the task of longer-term recovery from the COVID pandemic on staff wellbeing, access times for patients and the deterioration in mental and physical health of our population as living standards drop.  We serve two distinct populations in two “systems”, each with their own, different approach to investment in healthcare provision.  We are radically changing our care models and taking most of our staff through a significant change in the way they work and where they work, associated with the Midland Met development.  We also host two, multi-agency Place partnerships in Sandwell and Ladywood and Perry Barr and have strategic ambitions to increase local employment opportunities and introduce meaningful, locally led quality improvement to maintain our service effectiveness and efficiency in the future.

With all of this going on, it is easy to lose and forget the progress we are making on some of the #fundamentalsofcare.  Here are a few significant achievements we have all, together, delivered in recent times:

  • After years of not delivering the 62 day cancer standards set nationally, we are now meeting these sustainably and consistently
  • We have virtually eradicated the longest elective waits for surgery and are now delivering 10% more activity in outpatients and in our treatment rooms and theatres than we were in 2019
  • We are the only Trust in the Black Country, seeing its admissions of patients over 65 and from care homes, actually falling
  • We deliver more urgent community response contacts and care navigation centre contacts than anywhere else in the Black Country
  • We have seen a 10% improvement in performance against the four hour emergency access standard for patients who are not admitted, within two months
  • We have reduced our diagnostic waiting time patients waiting over 13 weeks, by 6,000 in the last few months
  • We are now rated “green” by NHSE for adherence to our infection control standards
  • We met our financial delivery targets last financial year, through enhanced workforce controls and are the lowest user of “off-framework” agency staff in the Black Country

There are many more, however I am sure you will agree that is quite a list.  We do, however, have one significant and immediate challenge which is materially harming our patient experience for those individuals requiring admission and materially harming our ability to safely occupy our new hospital.  That is our inpatient length of stay.  It has increased by nearly 20% since this time last year.

We are embarking on urgent and intensive work to reduce that length of stay.  Everyone can play a part in this.  Please ensure that you are doing everything you can in your own sphere of influence, to ensure that our patients spend the shortest possible time in hospital.

Finally, we have just over a week until the Q1 Pulse Survey closes – and our response rate is currently at 27 per cent, which is not quite where we need it to be as we go in search of our target of 45 per cent.

I must commend colleagues in Imaging and PCCT – who are leading the way with response rates – in fact, they are higher than corporate. Thank you to everyone in these groups, particularly leaders who are spending lots of time engaging with their teams. Iyou haven’t yet completed your survey, please do take five minutes to complete it. You can access it via the link – and you simply need to input your e-mail address to get access.

This is simply to authenticate you as a member of staff – it does not identify your answers.

Have a good weekend.
Richard