b Responsive The NHS needs to plan for, and respond to, a wide range of incidents and emergencies that could affect health or patient care. These could be anything from extreme weather conditions to an outbreak of an infectious disease. The Civil Contingencies Act (2004) requires NHS organisations, and providers of NHS-funded care, to show that they can deal with such incidents while maintaining services. In order further develop resilience the trust took part in a number of training exercises including ‘high tide’, a severe weather event. As part of winter planning 2013/14 the Trust worked in partnership with other health providers to manage demand at peak time including integrated working at Accident and Emergency helping to achieve the four hour target in Wirral for the period October to December 2013, including the busy Christmas period.
b Well led The relationship between leadership and performance is critical and leads to a good organisational culture. This culture helps create staff satisfaction and loyalty which then leads to a sustainable, high performing organisation. The responsibility for leadership does not simply sit with the board, it runs through the whole organisation. We are committed to engagement across all levels of the organisation and in 2013/14 we held a series of 18 ‘Listening Events’ whose purpose was to provide our staff with the opportunity to share their ideas, thoughts and feedback on what we do, the way we do it and be part of shaping and leading the organisation. In addition, business planning events were held across all the different services to support the planning of future services development and quality improvement. This created a shared ownership amongst staff of how the Trust will develop as an organisation in delivering value for money and an exceptional level of service to our patient population.
Quality Account 2013/14
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Each and every person I was involved with showed respect and concern. All were cheerful and eager to help in my recovery.
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