You may have seen that this week marks two years since the first Covid-positive patients were admitted into our wards and, sadly, we lost the first people to the virus just a few days later.
In addition, it is almost two years since the UK first entered into ‘lockdown’ with widespread restrictions, designed to manage the spread of infection and ensure the NHS was not overwhelmed, introduced on March 23, 2020.
It has been a time like no other and I hope it is the toughest we will ever experience in my lifetime.
For this reason, colleagues across the Trust have been encouraged this week to ‘Take a Moment’, to reflect and remember all that has happened. Everyone we have lost, especially beloved colleagues and our family and friends.
We began the week with a small service in the Garden of Memories at Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital. If you haven’t been, please do have a look next time you are here. It is one of my favourite places to be, providing a perfect and peaceful little sanctuary for colleagues, patients and visitors. It is a huge credit to our estates and facilities team who maintain it with pride.
On Monday, myself and the Execs joined Canon Andrew Horsfall from our spiritual and chaplaincy team to hold a short service and, for safety, we didn’t provide physical invites but instead filmed it for others to view. We heard reflections from Andrew about his experiences and those of colleagues across the Trust during the last two years. My colleague and Chief Operating Officer Sharon Gilligan read a poem. Executive Directors lit four candles in memory of those we have lost.
I was honoured to contribute and whilst I was mindful to acknowledge the sadness of the pandemic, I was equally determined to think about some positive moments and try to offer hope too.
It’s important to remember not just those we lost but also the many, many people we cared for who recovered and made it home to their families and friends.
And alongside the immense personal sacrifice was the equally incredible personal resilience, colleagues working as a team, pulling together to do everything we could to support each other and our communities.
The innovations and improvements and pride that came from facing adversity and overcoming it, should be recognised and remembered. There are many tangible examples and I can honestly say we rose to the most monumental challenges with spirit, strength, sheer determination and grit.
I won’t highlight teams, individual colleagues or initiatives here because it was a genuine team effort.
But I do want to pay tribute to everyone in the Trust and, indeed, across the wider health and social care system.
It has been a difficult time, but I would not have wanted to have faced it anywhere else or with anyone else. You have all been amazing and I sincerely and genuinely mean that.
Throughout the rest of the week my focus has switched between two things that I think proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The first is the ongoing, frankly awe-inspiring efforts of colleagues in the Emergency Department and Urgent Care Centre at Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital. This team I do have to mention by name because it would be wrong not to acknowledge the very difficult operating environment they are dealing with.
But, to my point, they are not facing it alone. Despite the intense pressure through each day and night relentlessly, ELHT colleagues are pulling together with support from every direction to help.
This is visible and real. You can see, hear and feel everyone doing their bit.
Again, we work as one – people reaching into the department to move patients through it, developing new tools and techniques to help us cope like the patient streaming tool, helping with space by expanding a department that never shuts, never batting an eyelid when asked to do something – anything – to help.
Then there is the 24/7 juggernaut that is patient flow and the minute-by-minute moves they facilitate and vociferously drive across the Trust – both in hospital and out into the care of our brilliant community colleagues - each day and night ensuring we support as many people as need it, as quickly as we can.
Whilst not quite a ‘record breaking’ week for the number of people coming into the department, March has been the busiest month of the last six months with, on average, around 550-600 people coming in every day. Last week we supported over 750 ambulance crews with patients onboard too.
These are staggering numbers and we are one of the busiest A&E departments in the country.
What I am most proud of, though, is not the volume of people we are supporting but the sustained quality of our care in such difficult circumstances.
It’s fair to say all A&E departments are struggling with demand at the moment and performance is reduced as a result, but our statistics show we’re coping among the best.
In fact, as one example, when it comes to supporting paramedic colleagues to be able to hand over patients and get back on the road to more 999 emergencies, we’re top 10 in the whole of the UK.
What this says to me is that despite huge demand, we have never given up. We move forward and make progress even in the most difficult circumstances. What we can do, we do. What we can’t influence, we accept and what we can fix, we fix.
That’s no mean feat, day in, day out as seemingly more and more people come in through the doors. I am not afraid to admit that it does get to the team, at times very visibly and we must remember these are people and they’re struggling too at times. This is not how anybody wants to work but there is resilience and dedication from everyone at the Trust to work together and make things as good as they can be.
And so, secondly, myself and the Execs have tried to visit as many teams across as many sites as possible as part of ‘Take a Moment’, to say ‘hello’, ‘how are you?’ and offer perhaps a chocolate or thank you cake.
This has been both grounding and uplifting for all of us, recognising just how many people are working away diligently, sometimes behind the scenes, to keep everything going for local people who need care and support.
Overwhelmingly people said they felt part of something, that they were supported and, above all else, very proud to be part of the Trust and everything it had achieved.
Thank you to everyone who has given us such a warm welcome and provided positive feedback about what it’s like to be part of the team – and I’m sorry if we have not managed to connect with you yet. Do drop me a line if you’d like a visit and we’ll do our best to get there asap.
In the meantime, know we value each and every one of you equally. You are appreciated and the work you do is vital. The way you do it, even more so. It’s what makes ELHT such an incredible thing.
It shouldn’t, but sometimes it takes a special day or week or moment to stop and remember and to reflect.
I have been grateful to do that this week and I would encourage you to do so too.
Martin
PS. If you can, please support a fundraiser due to take place next week with Critical Care consultant Dr Sarah Clarke and the team for the Intensive Care Society and Doctors in Distress charities. They will tackle one of the toughest ski mountaineering courses in the world, the ‘Patrouille des Glaciers Route’ (PDG) which is 57.5km at altitudes of up to 13,000ft and are just £520 from an amazing £10,000 target. You can read more here https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Sarah-Clarke144