As I return from some annual leave, spent mostly tackling those essential life admin tasks that often get sidelined during our busy workdays, I want to take a moment to extend warm Eid Mubarak wishes to all our colleagues and community members who observed this significant occasion on Wednesday.
The past couple of weeks have been particularly busy, marked by a long bank holiday weekend and the closure of the 2023-24 financial year.
For our regular readers, colleagues throughout the Trust, and of course, our patients and their families, it's evident that this year hasn't been without its challenges. However, I'm pleased to say we've managed to end on a relatively positive note.
This achievement is the result of a collective effort, fuelled by an extraordinary amount of hard work and commitment from every corner of our organisation. My personal thanks go to each and every person who played a part in meeting performance targets, making improvements and keeping the momentum going to achieve our goals and objectives – all while working to meet the financial plan.
Targets and measures are very important but what truly matters is that we provided safe, personal and effective care to our patients and their families, while also supporting one another in the process. This is where my greatest source of pride lies, particularly given the exceptional challenges faced by the Trust.
I’d like to highlight some moments from my week that reaffirm how every action taken by our colleagues’ centres on the individual needs and well-being of our patients'.
On Sunday afternoon, firefighters responded to a small fire that broke out in one of the changing rooms at the Surgical Day Unit located at the Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital site. Fortunately, due to the prompt response and coordinated efforts of our colleagues on-site, as well as those who were on-call and provided support remotely, the fire was swiftly contained.
While the incident is currently under investigation by the police, I am grateful for the quick actions taken by both our colleagues and the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service. Their swift response helped to minimise damage, ensuring all patient appointments could continue on Monday without disruption. I’d like to pay tribute to everyone who was involved in handling the incident.
On Monday, along with Pete Murphy, Chief Nurse, Melissa Hatch one of our Non-Executive Directors and Jane Pemberton, Deputy Chief Nurse, I had the privilege of meeting with the Burnley West District Nurses. We joined them as part of the nursing assessment performance framework and had the pleasure of shadowing the District Nurses during their visits to the community.
Accompanying District Nurse Kelly on her visits to three patients' homes was truly a remarkable experience. It served as a poignant reminder of our organisation's core values and behaviours. Witnessing the compassionate care delivered by Kelly and the others in the team left me deeply inspired. My heartfelt commendations go out to the entire team for their exceptional dedication to providing outstanding patient care.
On Tuesday, we welcomed Chris McIlveen, the Chair of our Public Participation Panel (PPP) to join Teams Brief – a live internal event where key information is shared with colleagues across the organisation.
We are very fortunate to have Chris and the PPP actively engaged in overseeing patient and public involvement. Their invaluable contributions extend to shaping policies and procedures that directly impact on our patients and the public.
During his focus spot, Chris explained the pivotal role of the PPP within our Trust. Currently there are only 10 members on the panel which has served for the past five years as a vital voice for patients and the public.
Through gathering of feedback from our patients and connecting with community groups, they make sure a wide range of views are taking into account. Involving them in the development of services has been a crucial part of embedding patient and public engagement throughout the Trust, ultimately there is no service without the people who use them.
Many colleagues have taken part in the PPP’s monthly meetings to present on a wide variety of topics, something that is really valued by the panel members as it helps them to understand the details of how our services work and how they can best make a difference.
Caring for our patients, actively involving them in their care, and using their feedback to improve our services is really what we are all about. If you're interested in becoming part of this, please take a look at our ‘Join our Public Participation Panel’ leaflet. It provides all the information you need to take the next step in joining with us.
Feedback is crucial to the NHS and each year colleagues are asked to take part in the NHS Staff Survey, but asking for feedback is just half of the picture. We also need to act on what we hear.
Gleaning crucial insights from large scale surveys is helpful, but what really makes the difference is talking through those insights with the people who are the experts – our colleagues.
Over the next few weeks there will be a series of Big Conversations held to do just that. Colleagues will have the chance to talk in their teams to identify which areas we can make better.
We’ll also have three Trust-wide Big Conversation to discuss the feedback received through the survey. Focused around three questions, they will enable conversations on what changes are need to help colleagues feel more comfortable speaking up, more involved in making improvements and get the support they need for their mental health.
Colleagues can find out more about the Big Conversation through internal bulletins and line managers and how to get involved.
The A&E at Royal Blackburn is one of the busiest emergency departments in England and we are regularly breaking records for the number of people who come in for treatment each week and this includes a lot of very poorly people who need to be admitted for further care.
When I visited the department this week, I witnessed our colleagues working under significant pressure, in difficult circumstances, but they were all doing their very best to give care, compassion and dignity to their patients. I passed on my personal thanks at the time and will repeat them again here.
Yesterday, the NHS published details around the 4-hour A&E target, and ELHT was one of 38 out of 119 acute Trusts in England that met that target. In fact, at nearly 78% - that’s 2% higher than the national target – ELHT exceeded it. Given the context described above that is a phenomenal achievement.
Our annual awards ceremony, the Star Awards, recognises the difference our colleagues make to the lives of our patients, each other and our partner organisation and how they help us to be the best that we can be.
The deadline for submissions has been moved to Friday 19 April, following requests to extend to allow people who were on leave for Easter school holidays and Eid to put their nominations in.
If you or a relative have received treatment or care by someone you would like to say thank you to, you can nominate them for our People’s Health Hero award here.
It's one of 12 awards that will be presented at the virtual ceremony on 11 July and it is a really special way for to recognises a fantastic individual.
Another accolade we celebrate the Employee of the Month award. This week, I had the pleasure of presenting this award to Danielle Vitch, a dedicated Health Care Assistant on Ward B14.
Her nomination stems from a touching story: a former patient’s relative, deeply moved by Danielle’s compassionate care two years ago was remarkably reunited when she joined as a Health Care Assistant on the same ward. Having experienced Danielle’s exceptional support firsthand, decided to nominate her as a way to thank her.
I’d like to share a comment from the nomination, “Danielle puts patients first, always. Every shift she is happy, personable and patient focused. Each patient is treated as such and not as a number, Danielle gets to know the patients as well as their family and friends.”
Danielle represents the best of the Trust; prioritising patients, building relationships and having an empathetic approach to care. And we are incredibly fortunate to have many more people just like Danielle who are part of the ELHT family.
I also received news yesterday, that ELHT has been successfully reaccredited as ‘Veteran Aware’ by the NHS Veteran Covenant Healthcare Alliance. Congratulations go to Fiona Lamb, Clinical Site Manager and Armed Forces Veteran Lead, and Shafiq (Sid) Sadiq, Armed Forces Veteran Advocate Support Officer.
I must confess that I'm so used to hearing about Fiona and Sid’s well-deserved accolades that I thought this was never in doubt. However, I realise it's a product of an incredible amount of sheer hard work and dedication that makes such a massive difference to veteran's lives. Very well Done!
My final comments go to everyone in the endoscopy team, with a particular mention to Venkat Mahesh, Chris Russell, Jackie Stanworth, Gemma Hedge and Karen Higham for achieving JAG (Joint Advisory Group) accreditation again this year.
JAG is a voluntary scheme that focuses on standards, identifies areas for development and is based on evidence linked to clinical quality, patient experience, workforce and training. It is the ‘Gold Standard’ for Endoscopy Departments and it is real testament to the team that the service has met the required JAG accreditation standards.
A substantial amount of work and effort has been put into achieving this accreditation and I am extremely grateful to all of those involved. It reflects the dedication, hard work and drive within the team to strive to make our Endoscopy Departments outstanding. This is fantastic news for the team, the Trust and most importantly our patients.
I hope this blog has proved just how important our colleagues are – they are the Trust’s lifeblood. Without their compassion, teamwork and dedication we couldn't deliver the excellent high quality, safe and responsive care to our patients throughout east Lancashire.
That’s all from me for another busy week. Thank you, for everything that is being achieved, day in, day out – very inspiring hard work that can and should not be underestimated.