Skip to content Skip to main menu Skip to utility menu

Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 31 May

May 31, 2024

Recently it was shocking to read of the huge disparity of Birmingham men’s life expectancy which can plummet by a decade between train stops on the same line. Dr Justin Varney, Director of Public Health for Birmingham quoted the figures in a report to city council cabinet members where he explored the changes between the 2011 and 2021 census. The average life expectancy of men living near Chester Road railway station, close to Walmley and Sutton Coldfield is 83, whilst their neighbours only a two-minute stop away near Erdington is ten years less at 73 – also significantly lower than the England average of around 79 for men. He revealed that Birmingham’s life expectancy was “dropping faster” than the rest of the country.

Which is why it is one of our founding principles that the Midland Met development is #MoreThanAHospital, it is so much more. It will improve the life chances of our population. Through the build process we have ensured local people have benefited through employment opportunities and will continue to benefit through retail and educational opportunities in our new Learning Campus when it opens early in 2026. Already we have employed almost 150 local people in full time roles, and we are still recruiting. Our calculations demonstrate that through financial improvement in their work lives our local community will benefit from 74,000 extra years of life due to the process of building, opening and running Midland Met. This is something to be proud of. In developing our new estate, we are actively contributing significantly to the wellbeing of the population we serve.

Last week we heard that we are having an early general election – on 4 July just over five weeks away. This is good news for us as we remove the prospect of opening Midland Met amidst the pre-election restrictions on publicity, that we are subject to as a public sector body. And it is also good news for the country as we can all move on once the votes are counted. I have no doubt that there will be changes ahead regardless of the outcome of the election, so we will adjust and ensure we face the winter with our values leading our service. In terms of the election timetable, we are already into the pre-election period. Many of you are aware of the constraints of this but for those who are new to the process our communications team will be issuing guidance to remind all colleagues of specific restrictions. The timetable is as follows:

  1. 25 May pre-election period began
  2. 18 June Voter registration deadline
  3. 4 July Election takes place
  4. 5 July Election results announced and government formed

The ‘pre-election period’ is used across central and local government to describe the period of time immediately before elections or a referendum when specific restrictions on the activity of civil servants and officials, where appropriate, are in place. These restrictions prevent announcements from, and activities by, public bodies which could influence or be seen to influence the election. The term ‘purdah’ is also sometimes used to describe this period.

As you are aware we are working to a challenging financial improvement plan in order to achieve our targets this year.  We have now started to move into the key phase of ideas generation, and development through the numerous workstreams having commenced or about to start, to build deliverable plans for implementation during the year. With some workstreams already in delivery, we have delivered the first two months of cost improvement, and despite a significant challenge, we are confident that with the support of the wider organisation in helping us to identify and deliver the opportunities, we will be successful.

To that end we have launching two trust wide workshops (one at each site) on the 7th and 14th June respectively to which staff will be invited to help us think through the things we can do to deliver our financial improvement. We will be emailing everybody and preparing the session with numerous ideas that we have seen successfully delivered elsewhere, as well as using our own intelligence from within the Trust to help us through this process.

In other news, it is always welcome to hear how our colleagues are inspiring positive change across the UK, and in this case – the world – as we were delighted to receive a visitor from down under – Professor Manjit Pawar – an Acute/Internal Medicine and ICU Consultant who was trained by Chief Medical Officer Dr Mark Anderson and alongside Dr Sarb Clare at City and Sandwell, before moving to Singapore then Australia. Currently focused on educating students and post grads, he is looking to establish Acute Medicine and Rapid Access Servies in Regional Queensland with a primary focus on hospital avoidance, A&E avoidance and increased patient flow/satisfaction with care using the mantra of right person, right place, right time. Being aware of the rapid advances we are making in these areas he was hosted by Dr Sharjeel Kiani – EPICENTRE lead consultant – and was treated to a tour of our service in the aim of establishing a base line for back home and relationships to support the development of the same service in Queensland.

And finally, I was delighted to see Sarb take on the mantle of first female president of the West Midlands Physicians Association. She is a shining example to colleagues and represents the very best of us and what we stand for in terms of our ARC values. On the back of this honour, she has been invited to make the keynote speech at a Birmingham Women in Leadership Wealth and Health event later next month, where she will be joined by our Chief Nursing Officer Mel Roberts to represent the Trust in portraying our values going into such a pivotal year of the advent of our new hospital. You’ll be able to read more about this on Connect.

Thank you to colleagues who worked the bank holiday this week, the wider executive team and I are greatly appreciative of the hours you put in to look after the health needs of our communities, especially over the weekends and bank holidays.

Richard