Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 19 October
October 19, 2018
By the time you read this message I very much hope that eleven days of using paper systems in our Emergency Departments will have ended. It will take over a week to enter backlog data collected on paper, and probably until November 12th before some of our management information derived from this clinical data is accurate for the months of September and October. Patient transport, outpatient check in kiosks, and the system used by GP colleagues to request some tests have also been affected. As I have sought to explain in a couple of short films, the origin of our problems has been outdated server technology. On Tuesday next week, we will make changes to our second largest server, and over coming weeks we will progress and conclude work to address the whole infrastructure we have. Our wider IT infrastructure programme kicks off in coming days, and whilst our WiFi improvement work is yet again therefore behind schedule, it too will recommence in November.
I want to thank everyone for their immense hard work and forbearance. The Board’s first dedicated IT programme meeting takes place next Friday, and without distracting from the need to establish our programme for IT, and finalise and lockdown Unity go live dates for 2019, we will clearly examine the lessons learned from the last fortnight. Of course there are errors and omissions in that, though our business continuity plans held up well. I know that that Board committee will ask for comprehensive clarity on disaster recovery arrangements for the Trust’s IT, and third party expert support. For every system we run we want to have at least two employed experts, and a back up provider in place. That is a long way from where we are now, but is a realistic aim, and one we will afford.
Attached are this week’s IT statistics. IT Performance Stats 19 October 2018
Unapologetically three health messages follow!
1. We all recognise that blood stocks underpin much of the hospital care we are able to give. I know a lot of our employees give blood. If that is you, or is not yet you, please could I ask you to consider visiting the website blood.co.uk, or contacting the Birmingham Blood Centre, which is in New Street via 0300 123 23 23. Across the NHS we need around 6,000 donations a day to keep pace with need, and we can all play a part in that campaign and that work.
2. Our flu campaign continues to attract attention, comment, and most importantly vaccinated colleagues. The campaign goes mobile next week to our community settings. If you have not yet registered as a peer vaccinator, you can still do so, and the e-training is, I understand, brief to do. With QIHD coming up in November, now is the time to plan the next couple of weeks in your department, as we all look to make sure we vaccinate over 5,000 people. We have made a great start, but stamina is needed now as we aim to keep going and achieve herd immunity.
3. This week saw us jump start the number of staff who have completed Basic Life Support training, as we aim to fulfil our pledge to reach 100% coverage of those needing such update training and competence sign off by the end of this calendar year. Thank you to our Restart a Heart team for their work this week, and if you are reading this and are not yet yourself up to date, please make those arrangements in coming days. I very much hope it does not need any consequences to get us all over this particular line, but we would all recognise that mandatory training does mean that, and from April everyone in our Trust will need to be 100% up to date. Look out for more comms on the ways to be so, and what incomplete status will mean, during November.
You may have seen in the media that this week, the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, visited Midland Met. Balfour Beatty have taken site responsibility, retaining those people who have kept safe our site since January, and installing their signage and systems. The huge glass Winter Garden will start to go up over coming weeks. Next week our business case document goes to government to seek permission to start procurement in November for the final contractor, with 2022 our long-stop date to open the new site. It seems wrong to talk about momentum when we were due in 2015 to be open this very month, but the firm commitment of all political parties and statutory bodies as well as the great construction market response should give us faith and hope that we can deliver at long last. And I am delighted that final clinical conversations are taking place now about our reconfiguration plans for 2019. The Board is determined that we seek to achieve as many of the outcome and care benefits of Midland Met as we can, in advance of our move. On a seven day a week basis we want to be able to offer consultant led acute care to our patients, and I am hopeful that we can put a final proposal to our Board meeting on November 1st.
Eagle-eyed Heartbeat readers will have noticed that a couple of months ago I replied to a letter urging the Trust to get more serious about ending the use of disposable plastics across our sites. The end of this month sees a first step as we replace plastic cutlery in most of our retail and restaurant outlets. Wooden options will be used for take away with more metal cutlery for eat in. Please do your best to support this latest step in our social responsibility obligations, and do come forward with other ideas and suggestions that you feel could help our oceans. Or keep writing to Heartbeat because it really does make a difference!
Finally – all our Star Awards winners, friends and supporters are in the upcoming Heartbeat. I am not going to name names here, but you are all extraordinary and we are lucky to share the Trust with such caring and determined colleagues.
Hellomynameis…Toby.