Hello everyone,
I’m thrilled to have been invited to be a guest blogger this week.
I have been overwhelmed by the drive and determination I have seen over the past few months. The challenges facing our Trust in terms of what is now needed to run our services, manage demand and look after our workforce in the light of COVID-19 are becoming ever more real.
You will be hard-pressed to find a health and social care worker who does not agree that the NHS will never be the same after COVID-19 – and neither should we. The NHS was confronted with perhaps the single biggest challenge that we have ever faced. But this challenge gave us great opportunities too, and we turned to ‘radical’ solutions to keep our services going, our staff safe and our patients cared for.
We had to adapt to this new world with speed. The old ways of bricks and mortar 'clinic visits' were quickly changed to virtual appointments with great success. And now, we need to continue to embrace technology to restore our services and manage the appointments, operations and treatments that were unavoidably postponed during the height of the pandemic.
ELHT has great IT and improvement teams who are just a phone call or email away from turning your new idea into a reality. Together we can continue and excel in providing safe, personal and effective care to all our patients. So if your service could be improved through the implementation of new technology, don’t delay! Get in touch today!
I’m sure there are many of you preparing your children to return to school next week. The start of the 2020-21 school year will be unlike any we’ve seen before. For some, it has been an unsettling anxious time, for others the time of their lives with such a long break away from school rules. If you have little ones going to school for the first time Lancashire County Council has developed a great book which you might find helpful. And there is more general help and support on GOV.UK for parents and carers too. Good luck to all the new students as they return to school, college or university!
Have you heard the exciting news? On Sunday 30 August at 2:18pm the "Thank U NHS" Spitfire will fly over the Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital! How splendid is that! The aircraft is covered with the names of 80,000 NHS staff, family members, neighbours and friends nominated by members of the public to recognise the huge sacrifices and acts of kindness over the last few months. If you are lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the Spitfire, you will be able to see the message "Thank U NHS" written across the underside of its wings. Let’s all hope for clear skies! If you do spot it and manage to capture a photo we’d love to see it. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter and tag us in your posts. Or if you’d like, email your photos to communications@elht.nhs.uk and we will then share them with our staff who will be working on the wards! To find out when and where you can see the Spitfire, please visit our website here.
And finally, this is the last bank holiday of the summer. If you are able to, I wish you a lovely long weekend, and if you are one of the many who will be working in our hospitals or in the community; thank you so very much. I hope you are able to grab some time to relax.
Thank you for reading!
Best wishes, Michelle
Michelle Brown
Director of Finance