Dear colleague,

This week I joined Romford MP Andrew Rosindell to meet Health Minister Karin Smyth MP , to make the case for the £35million we need to transform our A&E at Queen’s Hospital and put an end to corridor care.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to talk the Minister through the challenges our staff and patients face. The A&E was built for 325 patients a day two decades ago and now often sees more than double that. She understood and recognised the strength of the case we’re making, particularly in light of how we’ve improved our A&E wait times in the last few years. 

However, the reality is many patients are still experiencing waits which are far too long and so despite the financial pressures across the NHS, we’ll continue to explore all options to find the money to create a department our staff and patients deserve.

My thanks to our local MPs who have publicly stated their support and commitment. Following the meeting Andrew commented: “I will continue to support the campaign for a new A&E at Queen’s in any way I can for as long as it takes to secure the necessary funding so that the people of Romford, Havering and wider area are able to access the best and fastest possible NHS services they rightly deserve.” 

Andrew also raised it in the House of Commons this week. 

I hope we are able to share some good news soon.

I also ‘met’ Elizabeth and Victoria this week – they’re our new pharmaceutical dispensing robots at Queen’s and will ensure our patients get the medicines they need much faster and more efficiently than before.

Once a pharmacy dispenser requests a certain medicine, the robots send it directly to them, picking it up and placing it onto a conveyor belt. The dispenser then labels, and double checks it against the prescription before it is given to the patient.

Later this year we’ll be introducing electronic prescribing, which will mean our pharmacy team can request medication from anywhere in the hospital, rather than going to collect paper prescriptions on our wards. We’ll also be launching our electronic patient record which will improve care, help to reduce medication errors, and provide a much better experience for our patients whose records will all be held in one single, secure area.  

Have a great weekend.

Best wishes,

Matthew Trainer

Chief Executive