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Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 12 February

February 12, 2021

I am now nearing the end of my first week at the Trust.  Can I firstly say thank you to all the people I have met so far for their candid and honest answers to my questions and for making me feel so welcome. I write this blog on the evening of my birthday (you have to guess how ancient I am) after enduring another agonisingly mediocre defeat for my football team, Wolverhampton Wanderers. I know that is a brave thing to declare when one works in West Bromwich and Birmingham, but I’m nothing if not transparent…

You’ll no doubt be aware that this week the Trust has been promoting apprenticeship opportunities and highlighting some of the roles and people in the Trust who have progressed into careers in the NHS with the benefit of an apprenticeship programme. Apprenticeships are for people of all ages if you would like to further develop your knowledge or would like a change of direction. As we come towards the start of a new NHS year it is a good opportunity to consider how your development needs so do talk to your line manager or our apprenticeship team to find out more.

Last weekend was the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation which was designated by the UN as a day for people to come together across the world and act to end this practice. Many countries are experiencing an increase in FGM cases due to the pandemic. Lead specialist midwife, Alison Byrne, provides holistic care, support and advice for women who have experienced FGM and continues to work hard to raise awareness of the support that is available.

My initial reflections on this week so far are:

  • We are now starting to see the tide turn from a pandemic response perspective, albeit with a long way to go before any kind of normality returns.  One thing that is clear is that the whole organisation has responded with commendable professionalism and hard work over the last few months, with no little discretionary effort from most of you. It’s also clear that we are all now exhausted, both physically and mentally.  I can assure you that both as a Black Country system and as a Trust leadership team, we are very much intending that the “recovery agenda” is not just about recovering waiting times and services, post-COVID. It is also about you and what we need to do to help you all recover.  That is about so much more than ensuring you can all take your accrued annual leave.  It’s about psychological support, professional development time and a realistic approach to stepping our services back up.  We will share much more on this agenda soon.
  • As a result of seeing the turning of the tide on the COVID demand on our services, we will shortly start turning our attention to the longer term objectives we all need to achieve for our local populations.  With the new government white paper on the NHS published today, we can be confident that the thrust of that paper – integrated care and population health improvement as the key focus for the NHS rather than just treating people who are acutely unwell – is already at the centre of our Trust vision.  We want to be the leading integrated care organisation in the country and the changes in practice we need to deliver in order to make the Midland Met a success are central to that.  I’ve seen and heard about some really leading edge practice this week, particularly in urgent care and integrated community care.  The adoption of best practice in both these spheres needs to be a central focus over the next 18 months before the “big move” to the MMUH.
  • Finally, all the above important and exciting stuff will have far less impact than it needs to, unless we can be confident that the fundamentals of good quality care are delivered to our local populations.  We need to ask ourselves, and I’d like you to challenge yourselves in your teams as we start to recover – are we delivering good quality care?

Is our service safe?  Are we learning from what has gone wrong and what has gone right, in our services?

Is our service effective?  Is what we do evidenced based and deemed best practice?

Is our service delivering compassionate patient experience that involves people in the planning of their care?

The key to any successful and innovative organisation which values its colleagues, is the delivery of the basics well and consistently.

Thank you again for a great first week.  I hope to meet more of you soon.

Richard