Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 13 July

July 13, 2018

It is still possible that football will come home before the Midland Met opens, but it looks like there may only be, sadly, a few weeks in it. Thanks to our catering teams and others who got into the swing of things. And good luck to staff from France or Croatia cheering on their team on Sunday afternoon.

This week the long listing took place for our Star Awards. Over 500 nominations were received and next week our shortlisting panels meet. They have a tremendously difficult job to do, and have also to keep a secret until mid October! I am fiercely proud of the excellence and service set out in the award nominations. Colleagues from every grade and profession, and every part of our Trust are represented. Over the last three months all of us have had a PDR review. I hope, among other things, that that gives rise to even more nominations next year for our awards, as we drive to improve further. This week’s Quality Improvement Half Day was all about accreditation for those improvement efforts as we strive to make sure that either for individuals with their line manager, or in local teams, we are working to make our services a little bit better tomorrow than they were yesterday.

One part of that work is training, of course. Every year I explain how we have trebled or quadrupled the training budget compared to 2013, and that, whatever the funding challenges of the NHS, it is a ringfenced budget. Today is the deadline day for Training Needs Analysis submissions. I know it’s Friday 13th. Every year someone stops me on a corridor, or pings me an email, explaining how their experience is not like that. That it is hard to get training. This week I met with lots of dedicated people within our IT team, and heard that message loud and clear. It is infuriating. Not to hear it, please speak up. But that we have not cracked this. And then I spoke with a senior sister in A&E. Her point was that to advance in a clinical nursing career it feels as if you have to go into management. That too is not our aim. The nursing escalator, and other projects, are all about creating clinical expert roles which allow people to advance their career, grade and expertise without having to lessen patient contact. Whatever the brilliance of our awards, we have work to do, and I will work with senior colleagues in groups and the executive to bridge the gap between what we want and what you get.

Of course sometimes we do get what we want. The urology team this week take delivery of the new laser. We continue to invest in equipment in imaging. And ED staff are clear that begging for dinamaps is not a good use of their time – I agree. In fact we are spending capital in large quantities to try and make our bit of the NHS succeed more often. Part of that is about technology, and I write about that below. But it is also about making sure you can bid for funds internally, and we are smart about bidding externally. The new NHS funding we hear about often comes out in blocks of money via Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STPs), sometimes known as Integrated Care Systems. In truth these are groups of organisations working together. As a group within the Black Country and Birmingham we have made this year’s bid for national funds for A&E expansion at Walsall and Dudley, cancer centre expansion in Wolverhampton (as we look to move some cancer surgery to New Cross), refurbishments on our sites because of the Midland Met delay, for a GP practice to move onto the Sandwell site, and top of the list, for mental health facilities located in Sandwell for the whole of the area. We will find out in the autumn if we succeed.

This week I got the first outline IT infrastructure report from our external experts. The encouraging news was that there are some clear actions to take to make changes to our networks. These should both improve pace and speed, and create resilience. These build on actions Mark Reynolds and others have recommended, and augment them. Over the next fortnight we will work through a practical plan for implementation of those recommendations during August, September and October. That does mean we have not yet made a decision over the precise date for Unity go live but it does suggest that go live will happen this year. I know training schedules have been issued and I would encourage you to find a priority for this in your busy list. Putting in Unity is a huge benefit for care but a huge change for us all. It’s success relies on many things, but one is a group of trained staff with a shared knowledge of the product, and altered processes of working to reflect that new system.

I attach the first weekly data set on our IT system. You can see from it that we have critical alerts which are unresolved, as well as your reported incidents and issues. We will continue to publish the data as we work to improve the service. A modern IT infrastructure works, with reliable Wifi, and has standard PCs and mobile devices where you work. All IT products and contracts will be held and managed through one place (no local department systems I am afraid), and Change Control means we do not alter our network without prior approval. This is a technical set of changes, but also a people and a cultural set of changes. I will continue to work closely with both the senior team in IT, and hear from frontline staff there, as we make those changes. There is every chance to go from where we are to a very good service, and that is before we get to Unity. Optimism though is not enough. As Wednesday showed. Skill and a little luck are needed too, along with teamwork.