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Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 19 November

November 19, 2021

My main plea today is for all of you to make time to complete your national NHS staff survey. There is only one week to go before the survey closes on Friday 26 November. If you have completed yours, thank you. If you are a line manager, please make sure that, over the next seven days, you create 15 minutes for each staff member in your team to do their survey and check to make sure they have done it. As a reminder, the emails come from survey@quality-health.co.uk and are titled “NHS Staff Survey 2021 Invitation: Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust”.

Some staff have had postal surveys so please ensure you fill it in and send it back in the freepost envelope. If you have any queries at all about what to do contact our comms teams swbh.comms@nhs.net who will be able to help.

It remains vital for us to hear from every colleague through these surveys. Without your input, we don’t know what things will make your working life better, and we are determined to improve how you feel about your job and working for this Trust. Your views do count and will make a difference to our future plans as we are making our people one of our three new strategic objectives.

Remember, there are still six £50 Love to Shop vouchers up for grabs in our prize draw for all those who complete a survey.

This week I had the opportunity to join leaders from across the Black Country and West Birmingham system in briefing local and regional media representatives on our plans to keep patients safe this winter, amidst the expected increasing number of patients requiring urgent and emergency care. At the same time, NHS Providers, the organisation who represents all NHS service organisations, announced their predictions that this winter would be the most challenging yet for the NHS, and leaders of ambulance Trusts published their report on the impact to patients of delayed hospital handovers. We are already experiencing significant pressure in many of our services which comes straight after our most difficult 18 months.

Working through these challenges can at times feel overwhelming and I know that many of you share my apprehensions about this coming winter. However, what came through clearly in our media briefing this week, was that every organisation has a significant number of schemes that are either operational right now or being worked up to help us do better for our patients and minimise the risks. And, we are working much better together as a whole system than ever before. What we can do jointly with other partners including primary care, social care and the voluntary sector will provide far more than we can offer on our own. And, what we can do together with partner Trusts, eliminating organisational boundaries, providing mutual support, will again help to keep our focus on how we keep patients safe.

There is a very clear message to all of us this winter that is the same for the general public. There are simple things we can and must all do to support yourselves and your loved ones:

  • Get vaccinated for flu and COVID-19 and get your COVID-19 booster.  (I’ve had mine – have you?)
  • Seek medical help when you need it, don’t wait until you become acutely unwell – there are a range of health services you can contact 24 hours a day for help. Go to 111.nhs.uk for all the information on what you can access locally
  • Be mindful of infection prevention and control – get tested regularly, wash your hands thoroughly, wear the right PPE and be cautious when out and socialising

These measures will significantly impact the kind of winter we will experience and the demand for care and support.

Finally, thank you to everyone who is accommodating our new visiting arrangements that came into force on Wednesday. We are taking a cautious approach to opening up visiting and will continue to review regularly our visiting policy based on COVID-19 cases in hospitals, in the community and any outbreaks. But it is pleasing to be able to allow these short visits from loved ones who will undoubtedly appreciate the efforts you are all making to keep patients safe and yet allow this valued time for people to be together.