Dear colleagues,

We've officially gone live with our new electronic patient record (EPR) across our Trust, including at Barking Community Hospital and St George’s Health and Wellbeing Hub.

This is an important moment for us and over time, will help us improve patient care and the way our staff do their jobs. So far, the roll out has been running to time and is largely going as we had expected.

We have had problems but have been able to fix most of them as they have come up. It will take weeks or months for some of our services to start to see the full benefits and for us to be confident that we have managed this change properly. But we have made a promising start.

I have already seen examples this week of staff delivering better, safer care as a result of our new system. I’d like to thank everyone for their hard work in getting us here.It’s not easy adjusting to a new system while preparing for a strike by resident doctors.

We have also had to cope with the impact of a couple of the busiest weeks in A&E on record, after our busiest October ever and a very difficult start to November. I know staff and patients have had to put up with long waits, crowding and corridor care and I am sorry about this.

Our EPR is the same as the one being used at Barts Health and I’m very grateful for their support in implementing it. We’ve already started seeing the benefits of an EPR in common, when our teams were immediately able to see a patient’s care at a Barts hospital, allowing us to begin treating them without delay.

I’d like to thank everyone visiting our sites for their ongoing patience while things are taking longer than usual.

Resident doctors’ strike action

Resident doctors (formerly known as junior doctors) will be on strike from 7am on Friday 14 November to 7am on Wednesday 19 November.

This will have a significant impact on services across our hospitals, particularly, as I mentioned above, our teams are adjusting to a new way of working.

We’re working hard to ensure emergency and maternity care are covered throughout the strike and to keep patients safe, and we are doing everything we can to minimise disruption.

We’re asking anyone whose condition is not life threatening to use other services such as NHS 111 or their local pharmacy.

Those who need urgent care, including cancer patients and those who have experienced longer waits, are being prioritised.

Best wishes,

Matthew Trainer,

Chief Executive