Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 23 March

March 23, 2018

We continue to care for increasing numbers of patients who need our care through the emergency departments and on our wards, although it seems that this week has seen some significant improvement in ED performance with fewer patients waiting longer in ED than we would like. I totally recognise the hard work and extra hours that people are putting in to keep our services safe, seeing and treating our patients as quickly as possible. This has been a tough winter, not just here, but across the NHS. That doesn’t make it feel any easier in the day to day running of our vital services, and we need to continue to recognise the additional commitment from many in providing compassionate care under difficult circumstances.

I am, as ever, pleased with the support we have from other organisations within our communities to help make our patient experience that bit more pleasant. This week, again, Sandwell patients have had the joy of Sandwell College students on our wards doing beauty therapy and other activities to brighten up daily life for inpatients, thanks to the partnership with Kissing it Better. We have also had a team of HSBC employees who have visited City Hospital twice with huge energy and enthusiasm to decorate the previously dark and dingy entrance to neonates. Check out @SWBHnhs on twitter to see the views of parents on this transformation. This demonstrates how a range of interventions really makes a difference to how patients and relatives feel about the care experience here. We may not be able see patients any faster than we are already, or move them yet to purpose-built new facilities, but we are able to improve how people feel about care here if we continue to work in partnership with others who are ready and willing to help.

More visits have been done this week from our team of in-house mock inspectors who have been on a series of unannounced visits, to check whether we have completed and closed off all the actions in our CQC improvement plan – we plan to complete everything by the end of this month. We have had inspections at Rowley Regis Hospital, the Birmingham & Midland Eye Centre, Emergency Departments and wards at both sites with more planned over the coming weeks. There is still an opportunity for you to be part of the inspection squad by volunteering just two hours of your time – a great opportunity for you to learn about other areas you may not be familiar with and talk to colleagues and patients about the quality of health care we provide. Get in touch with Allison Binns, Deputy Director of Governance, to find out more.

A long bank holiday weekend looms and with it the threat of more snow (surely not!). I know that teams have robust plans in place to make sure that we support our patients well over the Easter weekend so that we are not making patients wait longer than they should for tests, results, diagnoses, decisions or discharges. Our snow plans have also been tried and tested recently and we are well-prepared. As we move closer to seven day working across all teams and services it will become more real that the weekend is a seamless extension of our weekday work, meaning that our patients can have the same confidence and positive experience of care whenever they need it.

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