Dear colleague,

As I mentioned in my CEO Board report that I shared last week, we’re now just two months away from launching our electronic patient record (EPR).

It’s the biggest, single operational, clinical and infrastructure programme we’ve undertaken since the pandemic. 

We’re grateful to Sarah Jensen, Chief Information Officer at Barts Health and her team, for the extensive support they’re giving us in the run up to going live in November.

We passed a key technical milestone recently; we’re training our staff; and we’ll be doing a ‘dress rehearsal’ later this month when we will run through a range of scenarios to check what is working and spot any problems. 

The introduction of our EPR will mean patients may experience some delays as my colleagues get used to using the new system. However, any short-term inconvenience will be worth it for our staff and our residents. 

We’re moving from being reliant on paper to housing all patient information, from medical history to recent treatment, in one secure online record. It’ll give staff faster access to real time information and will improve safety and reduce errors.

Well done to PELC

I’d like to pass on my congratulations to the team at PELC (Partnership of East London Co-operatives), who run our urgent treatment centres at Queen’s and King George Hospitals.

They’ve been rated Good in their latest inspection by the Care Quality Commission. It reflects all the hard work that’s been put in over the last few years to improve services for patients. Well done to everyone involved.

New training programme for anaesthetists 

We’ve recently introduced a training programme for doctors working in anaesthesia and intensive care, led by anaesthetic consultants Ankit Kumar and Ayub Khan.

BREATHE (BRinging Excellence to Anaesthesia and Healthcare Education) aims to establish us as a training centre of excellence for anaesthetics.

I was pleased to welcome some of the new trainees onto the programme and over the past 18 months we’ve recruited 10 new consultants who all trained at our Trust.

Beaming live to Kenya

And not to be outdone, the work of our Theatre team at King George Hospital was broadcast live to a conference in Kenya.

The team carried out a laproscopic (keyhole) surgery, which was streamed live to the audience at the Kenyan Devolution Conference, hosted by the British High Commission Office last month.

Surgeon Niroo Rajendran guided the audience through the procedure, carried out by colleague Aman Bhargava.

It was a great opportunity to share learnings across our healthcare system and build valuable international relationships. 

Our back-to-school uniform events

We’ve been supporting our colleagues by helping children get kitted out for school with our school uniform events.

For a small donation to the charity SMILE London and Essex, staff could visit and get what they needed, including shoes and stationery. It really helps with the cost, especially with children growing out of their uniforms so quickly!

Have a great weekend.

Best wishes,

Matthew Trainer
Chief Executive