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Friday 3 January – Message from Jo Newens, Chief Operating Officer

January 3, 2025

Dear colleagues,

 

Happy New Year. I hope you managed to take the opportunity over the last two weeks to enjoy some downtime with your family and friends.

2024 will be a year that long stays in my memory and one that I look back on full of pride and I hope that you all will too.

Not only did we successfully open a brand-new, state of the art healthcare facility, we developed a new clinical model, with community at its heart and we have re-configured our services and teams to make the most of our estate. Over the next few weeks, you will hear more about the development of our City and Sandwell Health Campuses and more on our community services – this will help you to have a better understanding of the vital work being done in the community to keep people out of acute beds and in the comfort of their own home where possible – keep your eye on our comms channels for this.

 

Whether you work in our acute services at Midland Met, within the community or health campuses or in a corporate or support service – we wouldn’t have achieved what we did during 2024 (and indeed the years leading up to this) without everyone playing their part. Let’s continue to work together and set our sights high in 2025.

 

We have lots to shout about and celebrate, and what better way to do that than the Star Awards. Our annual awards ceremony will take place a little bit earlier this year (14 March) and the nominations are now open and are already proving popular, with over 200 submitted already. Please have a think about those colleagues or teams you work with, who have really gone the extra mile this last year – there are seven of our usual categories and seven which are dedicated to the enabling of Midland Met – including categories for change and transformation, which everyone has played a part in.

You can submit your nomination here – they will close on 31 January.

Winter is always a challenging period for the NHS, and this year is no different and we are now starting to see the impact of a rise in respiratory infections in the community, with an increase in patients being admitted with flu in particular.

 

NHS England are predicting that we will hit the peak of flu by the end of next week. Midland Met gives us an added advantage in our fight against infection – having 50% side rooms means that we can isolate suspected and confirmed cases and limit the spread of viruses to other patients, visitors, and staff much more effectively than we could at City or Sandwell. The key to this being successful is early detection of symptoms and then taking steps to isolate the patient and take a swab. It is really important that the patient is isolated as soon as you suspect they have an infection, you should not wait for the result before taking action. For our patients in the community we have excellent urgent community response teams and virtual ward teams adding an extra layer of access to care to maintain people safely in their homes. On this point the Board will make “Community First”  a priority for this coming year.

 

You are still able to get your flu vaccination if you haven’t done so already – not only will it protect you against flu, but it will also help to protect your loved ones and the patients you care for. The details of how to get your vaccination are here.

Please also remember the importance of regularly washing your hands with soap and water to help stop the spread of infection – hand sanitiser alone isn’t effective against some viruses, including Norovirus.

On Monday 6 November, we will be introducing the new 45-minute ambulance handover, which has previously been piloted by London Ambulance Service and has now been mandated across all integrated care systems by NHS England on a phased basis.

This change is a critical step in improving patient care and ensuring that ambulances can return to the community promptly, ready to respond to emergencies.

This initiative is designed to:

  • Enhance patient safety: By reducing delays, patients will receive timely care in the most appropriate setting equipped for their needs.
  • Improve emergency response times: Ambulance crews will spend less time waiting outside hospitals, enabling them to respond more quickly to other patients in the community.

To support the implementation of this standard, we are putting the following measures in place:

  • Streamlined Handover Processes: Introducing clear protocols to ensure smooth transitions, including enhanced communication between ambulance services and hospital staff.
  • Capacity Management: Increasing focus on discharge planning and patient flow to create space for incoming patients.

Crews will handover patients at 45 minutes and then leave site. This obviously will put our ED teams under significant pressure when all of the cubicles are full and be detrimental to patient experience and quality of care if we cannot accommodate patients in a cubicle.

We understand that this will be challenging, but I want to stress that making this successful is not solely the responsibility of those working within ED. It is vitally important that we are all playing our part  to improve the experience and outcome for our patients. Specialties need to actively pull their patients from ED into Same Day Emergency Care Units and assesment areas. Planning for and delivering effective and efficient discharges with a reduced length of stay is crucial.

If you have any questions about this, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

Finally, our new Interim Chief Executive, Diane Wake will join the Trust on Monday 6 January. I know she is looking forward to getting started and meeting many of you. Please be sure to offer her a warm welcome. Diane is active on X and if you would like to follow her, her username is @DudleyGroupCEO – which I am sure will be updated to incorporate SWB very soon.

 

Have a good weekend.

Kind regards
Jo Newens
Chief Operating Officer