Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 25 October

October 25, 2019

Unity was down last night for an hour unexpectedly. Unity will have some downtime on Sunday at 00.45 for up to two hours in a planned way, as I explained a fortnight ago, to handle the UK wide change of hour. Why am I starting with this? We have made huge progress on IT over recent months. Reliability of systems is transformed, and we have 24-7 support now in place, as you have the right to expect. Our Pulse VPN solution works well. I do not want incidents to give the sense of a ‘slippery slope’ back to where we were, and Cerner are well aware of how seriously last night’s issue has been taken: In essence they made a no impact back office change nationally, which did have an impact. We have altered our protocol for agreeing business change with them with immediate effect, as this is the second occasion since go-live when this has happened. I apologise to those of you affected.

Next week I will be writing to all of our Unity Super Users to set out the arrangements for supporting them with their new responsibilities now we have gone live. And also to promote some roles for clinicians with interest in technology to form part of advisory groupings as we take forward the organisations digital plans for the coming five years. I am thrilled that our Artificial Intelligence project with IBM Watson in radiology is getting ready for launch in coming weeks. Today’s Board level digital committee reviewed future plans for the shape and role of the IT function in the Trust, and also confirmed future performance standards for our network, which will form the basis for the IT scorecard – in case you were wondering what had happened to that staple of these messages.  The other such staple, our Brexit bulletin, is attached as usual. It is probably likely that 31 October will not see exit. But with greater certainty I can confirm some things that will change on 1 November!

1. The gym at City Hospital will be officially reopened as a free-to-use facility for employees. On Monday next (28 October) there is an open day to walk around and see what is now in place.  You will know from TeamTalk for November that we are consulting on our outdoor physical activity equipment as part of our grounds and gardens 2020 project.
2. We start a new era on employee recruitment, in that from Friday 1 November, all roles to which we hire will receive a same day offer of employment. There is some minor conditionality, but the idea is to be in a place where someone offered the chance to join us can indeed resign with confidence from the prior role. Analysis of our recruitment work over the last 18 months shows that our delays on that offer, or caveating of it, have seen too many great people take another option. Daily bulletins next week will set out the roles of HR and line managers from 1 November.

Looking forward into November, I wanted to highlight some big stuff that is happening. Later in the month our long planned changes in respiratory medicine go into operation, moving inpatient services for adults from Sandwell to City. Thank you in advance to everyone working hard to make that happen to see the benefit from much closer working between acute and respiratory medicine.  Today the Trust’s Quality and Safety committee spent time discussing frailty, hospital acquired functional decline, and the work we need to do in coming months to move forward our service offer for older people. That is a cross Trust, in and out of hospital, discussion but with an initial focus on our Sandwell site. Ageing Well is very much the focus of NHS regional investment and planning and we will want to play a very full part in that work.

November is also the deadline for our flu vaccination and national anonymous staff survey returns.  Almost 2,500 colleagues have had the vaccine so far, and we want to reach over 5,000 colleagues, so thank you to peer vaccinators and others on our mobiles and in our clinics working to do just that.  Directorate-level data on survey completion is out and about, as we count down towards 29 November when the NHS-wide survey closes. There is no reason we cannot get a return of above 35 per cent or even reach 50 per cent. Our weConnect data shows clearly the enthusiasm we share to improve engagement and involvement across SWB. If you are particularly enthusiastic then you have one more week to register for our wave 2 Pioneer team project – which gives extra support to teams of around 30 people in developing how they work together and get the most out of being part of the Trust.

Lastly a massive Shout Out to the Sandwell A&E night team from Monday just gone, and Sarah Jones, for a whole shift with no patients going beyond a four hour wait. The NHS will shortly publish analysed data on the elevated mortality impact of a six or eight hour wait in ED across a population. A reminder if we needed it that wait times do have the potential to make a difference to outcome. The team proved what we can do, and I know there is work to learn from excellence across our A&E departments, as well as to make the changes needed in other departments to tackle the overcrowding effect of recent weeks. All of us have a part to play.

If you are working a night shift over this weekend please remember that the Hallam Restaurant is showing live rugby alongside a delicious and quite healthy breakfast.

SWB Brexit Bulletin – 25 October 2019

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