Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 16 August
August 16, 2019
I am not going to fill this message with comments about Unity this week, as coming weeks may see the subject dominate our working lives. Thank you not only to colleagues working hard on their own readiness for Go Live, but also to line managers working really hard to make sure that teams undertake the simulation training, complete Cap Man training and finish off the individual competency assessments. Today’s review at our Digital Committee suggested lots of areas of outstanding work across the Trust and a handful of hot spots where more support needs to be provided to make sure that specific teams are ready, and that their lack of readiness does not force a delay to the Trust-wide Go Live. In implementing Unity, as in so much else, we are one organisation and as strong the weakest links we have, so we will be looking to put even more support into some areas in the days ahead. It is pleasing to see that we are beginning to fill the rotas and shift rosters for the Go Live period, at 100% in much of the Trust, 110% in silver teams and 120% in gold teams. For up to two weeks after Go Live we fully expect to be slightly slower in doing our work, but we need to do all we can to make sure that we accelerate out of that slow-down inside ten days. Based on Go Live elsewhere that is absolutely possible, if we focus hard now on individual training, sense of competence, knowledge of how to ask for help, and team-working skills. Our Floor Walkers, Digital Champions and Super Users can help, but they cannot substitute for that preparation – if we fail to prepare, we are in effect preparing to fail. The hard work I am seeing shows me that we getting ready to succeed.
Sepsis remains our key quality priority as a Trust. Huge hard work has got us to the point where screening after NEWS alerts is consistently high. Of course to improve outcomes, we then need to act on that screening, and our aim remains treatment inside an hour. Electronic Prescribing in October may help with that. But we do have teams succeeding now, and I wanted to pick out AMU A and Priory 5 at Sandwell as two teams that are leading the way. I hear contrary views on whether teams with lots of alerts are finding it easier to be ready to respond, or whether teams like that are sometimes overwhelmed. An area like Newton 3, with fewer alerts, is showing that less regular need does not mean we cannot deliver. Whenever we pick out individuals or teams for praise, I am sure there are many others who could be mentioned. Our sepsis performance data is now widely available every day, and I hope we have a spirit of healthy competition with teams learning what works well for each other. Perhaps that will then form part of your next QIHD Poster entry – after all the top prize in that contest is £5,000.
Thank you too to panels who gave up their time to undertake the shortlisting for our October Star Awards. At the beginning of September we will kick off the voting for Clinical Team of the Year for adults, and for children, as well as non-clinical team of the year, and our employee of the year. Having looked over those shortlists today, I can be certain that the standard is very high, and we have excellence across our organisation, in new starters and experienced staff, community and hospital teams. If you were nominated, many congratulations, and if you were shortlisted, even more so. Our top three in each category will be at the ceremony at Villa Park on October 11th.
I am sure too that in 2020 we will see some of our primary care teams competing for Awards, and it is great news that this week we managed to fully recruit to all our GP posts in the three practices. The future of primary care is very much our concern, and we have lots to learn from the way some local practices work. I spent time this week with Cape Hill practice, a cricket ball’s throw from Midland Met, and was truly inspired by their determination to tackle poverty and exclusion among care leavers, homeless people, and those with mental health issues. This week also saw Trust leaders facilitating the two Care Alliances that we are co-constructing in Sandwell, and in Ladywood and Perry Barr, as we look to create meaningfully integrated systems locally that are better able to focus attention on outcomes. To do that of course, whether it is in maternity or older people’s care, paediatrics or cardiology, we need to find ways to devote more of the resources we have – time, workforce, finance – on the most vulnerable and most excluded local people. Of course, programmes like our sepsis work in the Quality Plan drives improvement, but bigger gains will come from contact with people who do not use services or use them at a late stage of need.
Well done to our teams in theatres and in orthopaedics who undertook last week their first ‘perfect week’ project to tackle productivity and quality issues. There is certainly more to do if we are to fulfil our promises to treat more patients in those services in September and beyond. Just as we are investing in BMEC to expand our theatre capability, I want to be very explicit that our work to provide more preventative care and more care at home will not come at the expense of expanding treatment services. That is why I was pleased to see the success of our Uro-Lift trial in urology, now expanded in the weeks ahead. At the same time we will look to expand our breast service to meet growing need. There is no false choice to be made between growing out of hospital care and improving specialist acute planned and unplanned treatment. You will remember that the biggest investment we made this year in our Trust was in critical care expansion, and the largest single area benefitting from device integration after Unity is critical care again.
At the upcoming Clinical Leadership Executive we will focus time together on the Trust’s response to better mental health services. There are many facets to this, but one is to make sure that if an adult or young person is in a bed with us, because that is what they need first, or because no facility can be found elsewhere, that we are able to offer the right service. I know that some nursing and medical staff have concerns about that, and the plans we will agree in ten days’ time will be designed to begin to tackle this subject. Likewise we are working to make sure that Focused Care support is available to our patients when needed, and upcoming meetings with Group Directors of Nursing will explore how we can best ensure that that happens. Both topics may create a sense that either funding or interest is lacking at a senior level in the Trust – I know that that is simply wrong, but I also know that we will be judged on results in these areas.
Finally, you may have read in Heartbeat about our Cyber Cafes. The first 3 are now open, at Rowley, in the Hallam Restaurant, and in the BTC. The cafes are for anyone. But part of their use is to help staff whose day job may not give them time or opportunity to use a computer to have access to one. That will help with payslips, help with Heartbeat – when both go e-only in a few weeks’ time – but must also help with our communication. For a while now we have made use of videos to support key messages and discussions, and this week saw us use cartoon animation to bring to life our Managers’ Code of Conduct. Thank you for the positive response from many people to this work – this a genuine attempt to make sure that we are more consistently at the standard of our best in the way we manage and lead. There are bound to be mistakes, but in an organisation focusing on learning, it must be right that that insistence of improvement applies too to how we manage.
Attached are this week’s IT stats: IT Performance Stats 16 August 2019
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