Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 2 August
August 2, 2024
Yesterday, we celebrated a special birthday celebration at our very own Rowley Regis Hospital. An integral part of the SWB estate, Rowley Regis Hospital opened its doors to patients on 1 August 1994 – 30 years ago, but it seems like only yesterday. Not only does it provide a comprehensive range of community services, including rehabilitation care, but it is also the base for many of our community teams, who work with acute colleagues to ensure patients are getting their treatment and care in the right place for their needs. I would like to thank all colleagues who work there for their contribution to great patient care. Those of you who regularly to Rowley will testify that is very much a family feel to the place and long may that continue. Services at Rowley will be expanding soon – stroke rehabilitation services for Sandwell and Dudley residents are planned here, so it is going from strength to strength.
Moving onto to another new member of our SWB estate , Midland Met, I am delighted to share that earlier this week we reached a\ fantastic milestone. The Building Control Occupation Certificate has been issued. This document is issued by the Building Control Officer as a first step towards the completion of the building. The final Building Regulations Certificate – a sign completion – will follow when the final tasks have been done by Balfour Beatty in the coming days and weeks. These sorts of things showcase just how close we are to the opening of the new hospital in October.
Last week we had an excellent clinical and operational readiness away day – thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to such great conversations. The feedback I have received from this was very positive and shows how committed and engaged you all are at getting us over the final few weeks to opening. A highlight of the day was the closure of 100 of our interdependencies , the day started with 209 but after getting the right people together to talk this through , over 100 were resolved. It just shows the power of working and collaborating with colleagues and I urge you to continue to do so.
We also held operational readiness focused group reviews, which provided an opportunity to spend time with each of our clinical groups and look at what is still outstanding and where they need support. Again – these were very positive conversations.
Our operational readiness continues to increase, but there are still some areas that the team and I ask you to focus on, including ensuring job plans are finalised and uploaded onto e-allocate and that you work with finance to ensure that contracts and service level agreements with third parties have been updated and approved.
Lastly, a reminder to both clinical and non-clinical staff who will be moving to and /or working at Midland Met. You are required to complete the online general induction which covers every aspect of working at the new hospital. This is delivered via Centric Cortex and you can easily register for an account ( details here ). For any queries about induction, please email swbh.mmuhinduction@nhs.net.
Finally, a tougher note to end on, we ended our month three financial position £10K better than our plan, which is good, however, I don’t want you to lose sight of the £40m deficit plan that we must deliver against this year. As I have said before, this isn’t going to be easy, but we must all play our part in. We must all continue to keep a focus on improvement and efficiency, particularly through the workstreams of workforce, theatres, and outpatients.
We know that some of the best ideas for efficiency and improvement come from you, so I encourage you again to please engage in the financial improvement programme and come forward and share your ideas here.