Dear Colleagues
I have now been part of the team here at Gateshead Health for 4 months and after such a busy period; I am heading off on annual leave next week. I feel like this is well overdue (!) but also, it feels like a good time as a number of key work elements have reached a good point this week.
A key element is that we have signed off the annual accounts! Possibly not the most exciting update, but it is a key part of the annual business cycle and means a huge amount of work for our colleagues in finance across the group. Thank you to Kris MacKenzie and team.
In addition, this week we held our Quality Governance meeting. This is a key meeting in our calendar, as it is where we get assurance about the standard of care we provide. It was fantastic to get an update from the palliative care team, led by Dr Kerry Waterfield and Victoria Moody. Not only was this a great report, sharing the achievements of the team, but led to a healthy conversation about how we work with placebased partners to support wider palliative care objectives as many hospices and charities face a funding crisis.
This is a great example of our ambition of being “Clinically led and Management supported”. I have been overwhelmed with support for this approach but many of you have asked what this looks like in practice. In this case, our clinical leaders attended our key committee. They presented successes and concerns and will take forward, shape and influence our strategy and the next steps to get even better. As a management resource, my job, and that of colleagues will be to do everything we can to help them to deliver their ambitions.
It was also great to hear from Mark Thomas (Chief Pharmacist) as he presented the medicines quarterly report. Our oxygen prescribing has improved to 80% - which is amazing and the result of a lot of work. A huge thank you to all involved.
To ensure that we deliver on our promise to increase clinical leadership influence, we will be seeking to broaden representation at this meeting (and other key committees). To do this we need to reduce the number of meetings we have overall, review leadership time commitment and ensure local teams can make decisions relevant to your environment without having to multiple meetings – just the ones that add value to patients and our sustainability! This will take some work and will require us to focus on our culture and develop trusted working relationships. Mr Beeby will be working with divisional teams and leadership teams to develop this further.
In addition, Mr Beeby, Gill Findley and our directors of operations will be working with you all to ensure that professional leadership and structures are clear, ensuring clinical staff report into clinical leaders to optimise influence; allowing our managers to support and develop our professional admin services in order to help us all to improve patient care. This triumvirate working takes hard work, cultural change and investment of thought and energy, but if we want the best culture in the NHS and the best outcomes for patients, we need to commit to making this work.
I am thinking of setting up a “culture club” where interested parties can look at how we get the best culture and what this will look and feel like to all of us. Please let me know what you think about this idea and I will act accordingly. If you want to support and be part of it – even better! Let me know.
Another thank you to the Maternity team for achieving compliance with the Maternity Investment Scheme. This is a measure of safety and allows investment back into services. It is a lot of work and a real achievement by clinical and manager colleagues, so well done.
We also had Estates and Facilities day this week. A massive thank you to our QEF colleagues for all that you do for our staff and patients, it is really valued and appreciated.
Finally, I attended a great Medical Staff Committee this week, thanks for the welcome and engagement and I very much look forward to developing our relationship. I am meeting the SLMs tomorrow and the research team at lunchtime, so I’m going to end the week on a high and I am very much looking forward to it. After that…. I will see you in a week’s time!