Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 31 January

January 31, 2025

Yesterday, it was a pleasure to host the Chair of NHS England, Richard Meddings to Midland Met – although he visited areas of the hospital which he was very impressed by – his visit was very much focussed on hearing about our integrated clinical care model, which means local people get high quality care, in the right place, at the right time and by the right people.

We explained just how we are doing this – by splitting our pathways equally between community and acute services, which will support us in keeping in line with the recent NHS England planning announcement focusing on delivering faster treatment for patients – including for planned surgeries and emergency care.

Integrated care remains high on the agenda and community first is one of our Trust’s key objectives.

We are already performing well in this area through collaboration. Prime examples include the care home wrap around in Sandwell and West Birmingham and the opening of Harvest View which is a health and care facility promoting independence. It provides dementia beds, intermediate care and extra care and is recognised nationally as an innovative partnership model between our organisation and Sandwell Council.

I wanted to share the quote that Richard issued post his visit with you all. He said: “During my visit to the new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital, I was deeply impressed by the warmth and dedication of the staff.

“The innovative community-based care model here offers valuable lessons for others across the NHS. Particularly striking was the promising improvement in managing admissions for the most frail and elderly in the community.

“It was also great to see the leadership at the Black Country ICB, where I joined a Board meeting to hear about the financial challenges it faces and its performance on key operational indicators.

“Thank you to everyone at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust and the Black Country ICB for your exceptional work and commitment to patient care.”

In other news, I’m sure you will have heard by now that next week will be launching our new staff portal, SPARC. While Connect has served us well for several years, we need a new platform which better suits the needs of our clinical and non-clinical colleagues. SPARC will be accessible on both your computer and smartphone device and will be the best place for you to access all the latest news and stay in the know with everything across the organisation.

There is a step-by-step instruction guide of how to download the app to your smartphone which you can access by clicking here. In the meantime, should you have any queries around the platform, do reach out to anil.patel11@nhs.net and hermione.crump@nhs.net from the communications team.

And finally, we have now received over 640 nominations for the 2025 Star Awards which is fantastic – and is going to provide our judges with a challenge. However, there is still time to get nominations in by the end of the day.

If you haven’t done so already, get thinking about those colleagues who have gone above and beyond over the last 12 months, been part of something extra special or made a positive difference to the way we work or the quality of care our patients receive and ensure you put them forward for an award.

I look forward to sharing the shortlist with you over the next couple of weeks.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Diane.