Hello Everyone
Welcome to Spring, and to a new financial year. I always love this time of year - warmer weather and longer days give more opportunities to get out for a walk, bike ride, a run or just a visit to the park. Perhaps you may also think about leaving the car at home and travelling to work on foot or by cycling instead. Imagine the impact that would have on your health, the environment and the car park!
Spring would also traditionally be the time of year where we would be talking about winter pressures easing off. Unfortunately, the stark reality is that the demand for our services is always there and the pressure never really eases, it just might be in a slightly different form. It does seem relentless, and I admire, and thank each and every one of you for the way you deal with the workload whilst always putting our patients at the heart of everything you do.
This week I was glad to be able to celebrate a significant improvement in ambulance handover times across the North West. Over the last 6 months, we have been part of North West Ambulance Service’s ‘super 6’ collaborative working group along with five other Acute Trusts in our region on NWAS’s Every Minute Matters campaign. The aim of this project was to help NWAS understand delays and implement ways to tackle these so that ambulances could be released sooner to allow them to respond more quickly to 999 calls. We are all extremely delighted with how successful this has been.
‘Every Minute Matters’ leads me into my next plea and our own campaign – Every Minute Matters, Every Person Plays a Part – as we start to prepare for the extra-long Easter Weekend at the end of the month. For staff, please don’t forget that whatever job you do, you do have a part to play and a positive impact in making sure that patients are safely discharged in a timely manner. For patients and the public, please look after yourself and remind anyone you know to make sure that they do too - order any repeat prescriptions in plenty of time so to avoid running out over the four day stretch when some services and pharmacies may not be available. Keep an eye on our website www.elht.nhs.uk and our social media channels - Facebook and Twitter for tips on how to stay well over this period and accessing the most appropriate service for your needs.
As you know, I love my job, and one of my favourite parts of being CEO is getting to present our Employee of the Month award. I was delighted to present this month’s award to Burnley Midwife Rebecca White this week. Rebecca was nominated by a patient for her compassion and excellent care throughout the family’s truly traumatic experience. I want to thank the family involved for their nomination and my best wishes go out to them. Also, thank you to Rebecca for being everything that we strive to be here at ELHT by providing, Safe, Personal and Effective care with a level of compassion that is priceless to our patients.
I was extremely proud to present Rebecca White with her Employee of the Month Award this week
The work to improve the experience of our younger patients is continuing. Only a couple of weeks ago, thanks to the EG Group, we opened the brand new outdoor children’s play area. Now, I would like to thank Bowker BMW for their generosity. They have presented our paediatric day surgery (ward 27) at Burnley General Teaching Hospital with one fully-automated sit-in miniature vehicle, and one baby racer. These cars are brilliant and are a fun way to transport children to theatre and will hopefully ease some of their anxiety. Thank you Bowker BMW.
Children are delighted with the donation of mini cars - Thank you Bowker BMW!
Well, folks, that is all for this week. Keep up the amazing effort and thank you once again for all that you do to make ELHT the fantastic organisation that it is.
Until next week,
Kevin