The biggest topic of the week for everyone at or connected to the Trust remains the great and relentless pressure our services and colleagues are under.
Indeed this has been the case for quite some time and I know the strain of this is felt acutely by people working at the Trust, not just in our urgent or emergency pathways where it so visibly manifests itself, but in teams and departments right across all hospital settings and our community services too.
I want to again acknowledge and recognise this. Thank you for everything you are doing. I truly believe that we are demonstrating the best of the Trust’s values and spirit, recognising we are ‘all in it together’ and doing whatever we can to help ease the situation for each other, our patients and their families.
It is tough and imperfect and I don’t have a magic wand to fix things – but I do believe we’ll get through it as a team and, also, let’s not discount all the amazing things we are continuing to do every day. There are so many examples of this, it makes me very proud.
We are working across Pennine Lancashire with our partners to ensure local people are appraised of the situation, can make decisions for themselves about which services to use and, if they do decide to come to ED, will have a sense of what to expect from waiting times without being surprised.
We must also encourage people to continue to manage the spread of Covid. You’ve heard me say these many times before:
- Please wear your face mask or covering – on our premises it is mandatory for everyone to wear a face mask which you can pick up at main entrances. With rising community prevalence I’d also encourage you to wear a face mask when out and about, especially on public transport, in crowded places and in shops. It protects you but also others if you have Covid with no symptoms.
- If you haven’t had your first or second Covid vaccine, please book it now. That way, if and when you’re eligible, you can also have the booster. It may not fully protect you from being infected by the disease, but research is clear it will prevent most people from being so ill they need hospital support.
- Keep washing or sanitising your hands – all the time, especially as you enter and leave places or have contact with people.
- Give yourself room by social distancing wherever you can – it will help to prevent the spread of the virus.
- When you are in doors, open the windows – keeping your rooms ventilated also helps to prevent the spread and reduce the risk of infection.
If we all do our bit to curb this latest rise in infections and hospital admissions, it will help enormously as we try and manage Covid and winter pressures for the second year.
This week I also want to acknowledge the Trust’s part in the traffic chaos in and around the Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital site earlier this week. I’ve heard some real horror stories about 20-minute commutes being turned into nightmare two-hour slogs. And I can completely empathise, as I too was subject to very long delays on my commutes those days.
For anyone caught up in the traffic troubles I can only apologise. There was a very good and exciting reason it happened, though the road improvement works taking place outside the second site entrance certainly compounded the situation.
Monday saw the arrival of a new modular building which had to be craned into position and had a severe impact on traffic flow. In truth though, the arrival of the eLancs Hub — albeit in less-than-ideal circumstances — is a positive sign of progress on one of the biggest ongoing projects at ELHT - the introduction of a new electronic patient record (EPR) system.
We are now just about a year away from the big switch-on day in November, 2022, and that will be a huge landmark for us. It sounds simple, but it has the potential to completely transform the way we work, with real benefits for both our colleagues and patients and also their families.
Put simply, ‘eLancs’ is about replacing paper-based notes and records with a new suite of digital tools and technologies. The EPR is just one element, although a significant one. The work started in July when the project was launched and we’ve made solid progress since then.
For example, over the last six weeks, a growing number of wards have started using PatienTrack. This is a digital tool that records patient observations and the rollout has been swift, usage levels high and staff feedback overwhelmingly positive.
Talking to those using the new system, they are unanimous that it saves them time — time that they can then devote to patient care. The next phase of the work will be to link this tool with a bleep system called Smart Page which will automatically alert Acute Care teams if there are worrying changes to a patient’s condition.
This winter will also see the arrival of an Electronic Patient Record for the maternity systems across Lancashire and South Cumbria too. This will be known as Badgernet and when it goes live it will give parents-to-be access to information such as appointment times, maternity notes, a private diary, the ability to communicate with their midwife, and the option to upload scan results.
Of course, the big one is the EPR in 12 months’ time. But as you can imagine this is a project of huge scale and complexity. I firmly believe that the prize is worth the pain. It’s all about providing clinicians with up-to-the-minute information at their fingertips to help them make better, more effective decisions. It will make us more efficient and create a smoother care journey for our patients. It will enhance communication across clinicians and teams, reduce duplication and reduce some of the data collection burdens from people by capturing some things automatically.
As you can probably tell, it’s an incredibly important and busy time for the team who are tasked with implementing one of the most important transformational projects this Trust will see in a generation.
Which brings me back to the Hub. As well as proving a very visible reminder about the work that’s already under way it will provide vital space for administration, collaboration, workshops and training.
It’s a big piece of a huge jigsaw. Like this week proved, there will be painful days, but personally, I feel this is an exciting opportunity. We will continue to keep you posted as things progress. I hope you will get involved, particularly as a colleague, in helping us to deliver this as quickly and effectively as we can.
And not wishing to cause any further fireworks - tonight is Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night. If you are venturing out to an organised display, why not go to Witton Park’s on Saturday as ELHT&Me is one of the chosen charities for the event. You can get further information and pick up tickets here.
**Breaking News** You may have seen the exciting announcement over on Twitter that Sinto and Sanish – two amazing chefs at ELHT – have won the first-ever NHS Chef competition. It only goes to prove what we, our patients and our visitors already know, our Catering Team is the best in the NHS. More details on their exceptional journey will follow, so my final #CEOShoutOut goes to Sinto and Sanish, very well done to you both. We are all so incredibly proud of you.
Whatever you plan on doing this weekend, please stay safe and enjoy!
Until next time
Martin