Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 27 August

August 27, 2021

We are currently going through the process as a senior leadership team, of defining what our longer term objectives and goals are for the next few years.  Much is changing in healthcare in the NHS, some of it driven by the pandemic, some of it driven by legislation, some of it driven by workforce shortages and skills gaps.  Our new strategic objectives and subsequent plans, will have a particular focus on how the Trust needs to respond, longer term, to improving population health and our own staff experience and wellbeing.  However, one more immediate yet ongoing objective is to be better at delivering the fundamentals of care.  To be good or outstanding in everything we do.

One of the fundamentals of modern healthcare is the management of sepsis.  Sepsis is a global problem and accounts for about 20% of annual global deaths.  Many of those that survive sepsis can end up with long term health conditions. In our own Trust, 175 patients have a confirmed diagnosis of sepsis each week.  That is a huge number.  Sadly, it remains one of our commonest causes of death. The key to reducing deaths is prompt recognition as well as prompt treatment.  Our data show that  whilst we achieve a quite impressive 95% of eligible patients being screened for sepsis, we only achieve 65% receiving antibiotics within the first hour.  Research shows that delays in administration of antibiotics increase the chance of patients dying by nearly 8%. It is therefore important that all clinical areas review their processes, identify and improve on the barriers that are stopping us from achieving 100%.

The Trust is celebrating world sepsis day this year by a series of events in September to raise awareness. We encourage you to make sepsis a focus for your new safety huddles. All wards are encouraged to take part in the Sepsis board competition. I will be taking part with David Carruthers, Trust Medical Director and others in judging the best board on 20 September. If you wish to participate in the above competition, please contact essie.li@nhs.net. A sepsis board game tournament will take place in the MEC on the 17 September.  Group Directors will nominate staff to represent their groups to play against the Corporate Group.  I suspect the corporate team may be up against it here!  Sepsis is also going to be the focus of shared learning in the September QIHD.

Lets remind ourselves that delivering the fundamentals of care is our primary objective.  Improved sepsis management is a significant part of that.

Thank you to all colleagues working on the SurgiNet implementation that was successfully integrated within Unity on last week in readiness for the operational go live this autumn, replacing ORMIS. Training is required for all colleagues who will need to use the system so please make sure that you complete the necessary training. Your IT equipment will need to be up to date so if you are unsure contact the informatics team on ext. 4050 who will be able to advise you.