Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 6 March
March 6, 2020
This time next week, Friday 13th, we have our next Quality Improvement Half Day. That is also the launch pad day for our GEMS. You may remember we have been putting in place a portfolio of changes and ideas designed to help make sure we have a whole organisational approach to learning. We called that programme welearn and launched it in June 2019. The poster contest is probably its most well known manifestation, but in coming weeks we will see learning from excellence go large, and other developments around Grand Rounds and Schwartz Rounds. GEMS are examples of learning that are valuable enough to be promoted by each of our directorates and worth sharing Trust wide. They are all about local teams having processes in place to think through what knowledge from error and from excellence and getting that leaning shared. Look out for loads more details in the run up to next week!
Yesterday the Trust’s Board held our latest meeting. The papers are always on our website. This time the meeting was at one of the largest Hindu temple complexes locally. About half of our Board meetings are away from our sites and reflect work with our local community or particular advocacy or interest groups. The meeting of course discussed workforce and funding issues for the year ahead. But the main focus was in two areas; the fantastic work done in our Trust by and with our volunteers, and the work done in education, in this case medical education, as we get ready for the new Aston Medical School to sit alongside our historic links with the University of Birmingham. Heartbeat tells you more about the latter (you can read the online edition here https://connect2.swbh.nhs.uk/news/latest-edition-of-heartbeat-now-online-february-2020/.
Three years ago we adopted plans to radically change our approach to volunteering. We want to bring younger people into our team, work alongside the third sector, and hugely grow our numbers and reach. I know often management is an exercise in structured disappointment, but I am delighted to report conspicuous success. We have quadrupled volunteer numbers. Exceeded our targets. And now we are shooting for a thousand local people working alongside us as volunteers, giving big or small amounts of time, working generally or specifically. This is a fantastic situation to be in, and one I am publicising to get your ideas flowing. The change has come about for lots of reasons, but one of those has been specific departmental leaders who have embraced this work, not as a pair of hands, but as part of the team, and a pair of eyes that often offers a fresh perspective. So, after yesterday’s celebration, let’s grow this further.
Coronavirus is a dominant subject now as the issues and risks grow. Thank you again to those colleagues working with our PODs, and to everyone involved this week in getting our community transport option up and running. We have some really clear communications on Connect and I won’t try and summarise them blithely here. All of us need to take this as an opportunity to practice our hand washing technique and make sure we are challenging one another to get this right. I now chair a weekly planning group thinking through how we would manage various scenarios in the weeks ahead as the situation escalates. It is really important we focus our efforts on symptoms not countries and take care with older and more vulnerable patients, where the risks involved are clearly larger. No one underestimated the difficulties to be faced and communicating the plans nationally or locally is not intended to overlook the challenges. At the same time, if we are to help to distinguish fact from fiction, we need to be clear that we are best placed to find a way to manage the emerging risks, and we will be doing that.
Gradually, we are making clearer I hope the scope and scale of Midland Met (get your headset on!?). As I have written here many times we want the hospital to help us provide great and safe care. We want her to be a symbol and a reason for change in our local community. But we also want her to be a civilised and calm place to work. Good design can help us with that. And so can ensuring that we have the right shops and facilities, and that we work to get music, art and other stimuli into the building and into how we work. I was pleased this week to have a chance to meet Amy Martin, our arts curator, who joins us on the Trust-wide arts committee. Part of the work being done through Amy and the team is to make sure by the time we open we have thriving relationships in place to make the University Hospital culturally vibrant, that means reflective of local talent and aspiration, but also a focus of inspiration to us in the work we do, and to our carers and visitors at very difficult times. The countdown is on for the new hospital so now is the time to make sure your ideas come to the fore. The arts committee will also help steer and decide on any naming conventions in the new hospital, so that we do try and find a way to reflect our history, but also so that we create a clinical building that makes sense to people using it for the first time.
Finally, but probably most importantly, yesterday I was at City to hand over this week’s Star of the Week Award. It was great to meet Kulbinder Sidhu, whose nominations had come from a trainee doctor, and many nursing colleagues. Going the extra mile is part of our promises, and a feature of PDRs and so on. However, what came across from the nominations was how normal and routine Kully has made her exceptional work as a healthcare assistant. She helped others to be ready last year when we created the new Respiratory Hub. She helped a family involved in a recent EMRT situation. Thank you Kully for your work. It was a pleasure to recognise the esteem you are held in by those you work alongside every day – apparently you are “constantly in motion”!