Every now and then I step away from my usual Friday afternoon slot to allow someone else to be ‘guest blogger’ and provide an update on something in their area of expertise.
To be fair, this is mostly when I am on leave or otherwise unavoidably engaged and I am always grateful to those who agree to step in instead.
But this week is going to be slightly different in that I am here to share some updates and we have a guest blog from our Chief Nurse Pete Murphy too.
Pete wished to talk about the Trust’s new Quality Assurance Assessment Framework for nursing (QAAF) and introduce it himself, so I won’t say any more than I am really pleased with the work to develop and implement this. It’s been a great team effort which will improve care for patients and their families, as well as providing important assurance on quality too.
Before you go to read his update, let me mention a few things from what has been an incredibly busy but largely positive week.
On Monday a letter was issued by the Chief Executive of NHS England nationally Sir Jim Mackey to all local Chief Executives and Chairs of Trust Boards with some general feedback as well as some asks for the weeks and months to come.
Sir Jim is a key figure, working closely with the Government and Secretary of State Wes Streeting MP, to transform the NHS, improve waiting times and the quality of services and, importantly, reduce our budgets back into the black.
His letter was positive, recognising the great work already delivered on these pledges in the first half of the financial year, but he was clear also that there is still much more to do as we approach winter. His priorities will be easily recognisable to most colleagues – keep your focus on strong operational performance in both urgent and emergency care and elective procedures, improve quality, reduce waiting lists and don’t let go of the purse strings now, no matter how hard it gets.
I have talked a number of times about how the Trust is recognised for the quality of services and our operational performance, as well as our determination to reduce costs. I am proud of how we continue to lean into these key priorities and I know we will continue to focus on them even when winter inevitably bites.
Another great thing about Monday was hearing 11 per cent of colleagues had completed their staff survey, which is well ahead of where we were at the same time last year and the national average too. It’s a positive start – and thanks if you have done yours – but I will reiterate my plea to all colleagues to take 10 minutes and complete it when you can. I want to hear as many views from as many people as possible so we plan improvements that matter to you. It’s simple and anonymous – just search ‘Unmute Yourself’ in your inbox and follow the links.
On Tuesday, I received a second letter from NHS England which is pertinent to the experience of colleagues.
Evelyn Asante-Mensah who is Chair of Pennine Care Foundation Trust and of the North West, Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Assembly joined regional director Louise Shepherd to ask for action in response to the current social unrest widely reported in the media.
The letter said: “While such hostility may be most visible on our streets, it inevitably reverberates inside our organisations, affecting the wellbeing, sense of belonging, experience and safety of our staff. As leaders within the NHS, we have a responsibility to act decisively. Our values compel us to demonstrate and grow a culture of zero tolerance to racism in all its forms, to support colleagues who are affected, and to champion a culture where diversity is celebrated and protected.”
I could not agree more and I raised this at our all staff Teams Brief session and in the Trust’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) for 2024-25 later the same day. ELHT is already an intentionally anti-racist organisation and holds the bronze standard for anti-racism from the assembly but there is much more to do to improve the experience of so many colleagues and this remains a firm commitment of the Trust Board.
It is a requirement that we hold the AGM annually once the Annual Report is published and it effectively aims to share information openly for partners and local people, as well as providing a moment to comment, give feedback or ask questions at the end.
I know this kind of thing isn’t automatically at the top of everyone’s list to attend but it was pleasing to see some residents and media representatives in the audience and colleagues were able to chat to them afterwards on various matters too.
During the event I was able to highlight the absolute detail of what the Trust achieved, how many patients we had seen and treated and how that experience was rated by them. I also talked about some of our challenges in managing our budget effectively, but was able to provide assurances we have plans in place to recover this and are so far delivering them too.
Later the same day and continuing overnight into Wednesday morning we successfully upgraded our Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system and I know lots of colleagues were here throughout that window to make sure it went smoothly, with minimal disruption for colleagues and their patients, even if issues arose.
I am delighted to say it went incredibly well but in doing so it’s important to acknowledge that this wasn’t good luck or coincidence. It was due to months and months of detailed planning, dedicated testing and preparation for every conceivable eventuality from a number of people in the data and digital team.
Work of this nature is so often hidden and ever more in moments where things go well, but behind the scenes I know there was a huge amount of activity ensuring it was so.
For this reason, can I share my thanks to everyone in the EPR hub. I know there were some bleary eyes but happy faces on Wednesday morning and I hope colleagues manage to get some ‘downtime’ for the remainder of the week and into the weekend too. Well done to all colleagues involved, you’ve done a great job that is so critical to the smooth running of the Trust now and in the future.
I don’t intend to give a minute-by-minute, day by day update, but it follows that on Wednesday and into yesterday I was fortunate enough to be able to get out of the office and visit colleagues in both Royal Blackburn and Burnley General hospitals. Two reasons were to congratulate Star Award winners Andrew Keavey, in our research and education team, and paediatrician Dr Athanasios Konstantinidis (Dr Thanos to me) and present their certificate and trophy in person.
I won’t say any more on this as I blogged in detail last week about the Star Awards, but if you haven’t read it you can still catch it here. I know colleagues who presented the awards are also due to see the winners over the next couple of weeks and ensure we eek out every bit of well-deserved recognition for them.
I also popped into our charity hub near the front door and reception of Royal Blackburn to present one of the ELHT&Me team with the Colleague of the Month award for September. Anita Wright, who supports both the hospital charity and staff lottery fund, was surprised to see me and overwhelmed to have been nominated, never mind win. As I have said before, this is the usual reaction to those recognised for this award. They always say ‘I’m just doing my job’ but to others it is clearly so much more than that.
Congratulations Anita and thanks for all you do – the charity continues to go from strength to strength supporting so much for the Trust. (If you’re passing the hub, do call in and say hello to the team including our brilliant volunteers).
Lastly, I cannot resist telling you about a couple of patient stories I have heard this week which literally fill my heart with pride and joy.
The first was about a patient on Ward C2 in Blackburn a couple of weeks ago who was celebrating his 94th birthday in hospital. The fantastic team on C2 discovered this man was previously a church chorister and after seeing if a current choir could call in to sing, rounded up colleagues for an impromptu rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ and some cake.
I was grateful to the person who shared this story with me. He said: “Maybe this kind of thing is almost routine, but it was such a great moment of support and care that I just had to share it with you.” Thank you, Mike, for taking the time to write such a kind note, I really appreciated it.
In a similar vein, I am aware of a great deal of activity going on in the hospital at the moment to prepare for an event on Monday. I don’t want to share too much because it is involves a patient and retaining confidentiality is always key in health care – but safe to say I know colleagues are supporting them in the most touching way. I know because they asked for help from others in a private forum and hundreds of people came forward with offers of their time and expertise.
I have spoken before about the spirit of ELHT, the people at the heart of our teams and services and their compassion and kindness, which seemingly knows no bounds. Thank you for everything you do – including what we see and know about and everything you do behind the scenes quietly and effectively.
I am grateful to work with you and East Lancashire people are fortunate to have you.
Please don’t forget that on any day of the week.
Martin
And now … onto Pete Murphy:
Hello, My name is Pete Murphy and I’m the Chief Nurse here at the Trust.
Standards of care and patient experience are two themes that drive everything we do and I am really proud of the work that is constantly improve these areas.
We never take anything for granted which is why the frameworks and strategies we have in place are so important to ensure consistency in delivering safe, personal and effective care.
The Nursing Assessment and Performance Framework (NAPF) is one example of this. It was introduced in 2015, and is a key plank of our standards governance, reporting directly into the Board of Directors.
We've been doing an awful lot of work on trying to raise standards and our NAPF assessments have helped showcase areas of great practice and support teams to identify where they can improve.
I know wards and teams work hard to achieve the very best results and their hard work is demonstrated through fantastic results that include 14 ‘gold’ awards and 35 ‘silver’.
This is great news for our patients, because these assessments, which are rightly very rigorous, are a benchmark of quality and the gold and silver awards highlight how standards are being raised, which can only be a good thing for safety and care.
Ten years on from NAPF being introduced, there is clearly an obvious gap because only one profession – nursing – has been focused on. That’s why we have decided to further our accreditation processes to include other professional colleagues, including medics, Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) and other teams who are directly in the provision of frontline care.
With that in mind, last week I was very proud to launch our new Quality Assurance Assessment Framework – or QAAF for short.
Whilst the NHS may be full of algorithms, this is a really exciting development for ELHT. We believe we may be the first Trust in the country to have introduced an interdisciplinary assessment process that brings together medical, nursing and AHP colleagues.
QAAF involves an exacting series of standards and directly reflects the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) new core quality standards framework, so we're moving with the times.
Teams will be assessed on everything from patient experience, nutrition and discharge planning, to leadership, staffing and end of life care. Our vision is to embed quality into every aspect of our work through bespoke assessments, standardised templates and a transparent, consistent scoring system.
We want every patient to have the same high quality care and experience and these assessments give us the reassurance that this is happening.
A lot of work has been done behind the scenes to pull together QAAF and make it a robust, user-friendly and clinically meaningful quality assurance framework.
I’m pleased to say that it has already been trialled on a few of our wards and feedback has been positive and I’d like to thank everyone who has been part of the development, testing and delivery of it.
By embedding quality into every aspect of our work, we want to empower our colleagues to showcase excellence, identify opportunities for growth and contribute to a golden thread of assurance that connects frontline care with our strategic vision of providing every patient with safe, personal and effective care.
You’ll no doubt hear more about QAAF as assessments get underway, but for now, if you are a colleague, please do get involved.
Pete Murphy
Chief Nurse