Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 14 September

September 14, 2018

I have had the privilege of ‘holding the reins’ this week whilst Toby takes a well deserved break. I have really been struck by how much is happening in the Trust, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That might be emergency care flow, improving our approach each day to a good and speedy discharge for our patients, responding to families and carers when things haven’t been up to scratch, or our daily meetings and to hold each other to account and ensure we are spending our money wisely. I want to say a huge thank you and well done for working so hard, for giving us your energy, and for finding solutions and ways to move forward to deliver fantastic patient care, even in the face of seemingly unsolvable issues.

Colleagues will know we welcomed the CQC back on site on Tuesday morning, for the second lot of unannounced inspections to visit children’s services, maternity and neonates. As one in six of our patients is a child, this visit is far reaching, and involves teams in all groups. We have so much good practice to share, and I know that the CQC were pleased by the welcome they received. Thank you for being eager to share the improvements made, and tell our CQC visitors how we are constantly improving.

During the weekend we marked our 300 day countdown to going Smoke Free on all our sites. As the video above shows, there is plenty of support on offer to you, if you wish to take this opportunity to quit, or cut down.

This week we launched wemind with roadshows on site, which offers all colleagues 24/7 support to deal with any situation that might be causing them distress or anxiety. There are trained counsellors available on 0800 174 319  to proactively support all of our 7,000 colleagues. wemind is delivered in partnership with Care First and Kaleidoscope. You can also download the free Stress Free Island App from the App Store or Googleplay. All of this will be part of the Winter Wellness event on 3 October at City Postgrad, where we launch our annual flu jab campaign. If you could be a peer vaccinator, please sign up with Tracy Lees on 3306. The four highest vaccinators will again receive a bottle of champagne, and every vaccinator receives an additional half a day annual leave for 50 vaccinations.

Please see weekly IT statistics here. We continue to monitor this closely.

We were delighted to commit to the “Employer with Heart” charter this week, which offers additional maternity and parental leave to colleagues who have a premature baby. This was inspired by the stories from our neonatal colleagues, who see, first hand, the difficulties that new parents experience. We hope that the additional leave helps them to spend precious time with their new borns, without worrying about paying the bills. We have already inspired other organisations to consider doing this, which is great for our neonatal patients of the future.

On Wednesday 19 September we are hosting ‘Speak Up Day’, which will take place across all of our sites. This will give colleagues the opportunity to talk to our Speak Up Guardians, executives and each other about any issues you face, and gain help on resolving problems together. I look forward to meeting with many of you next week and talking about how, together, we can make working life easier, to deliver the best possible care to our patients.

Hellomynameis…Raffaela.

Raffaela Goodby is acting Chief Executive this week, while Toby Lewis is on annual leave.