Dear colleague,

Sky News

For several years now I have been raising my concerns about the increasing number of mental health patients we are seeing in our A&Es.

We often find ourselves looking after them for long periods of time in an environment which is just not suited to their needs. They deserve to be in a place where they can receive the best care.

This was never more apparent than when we invited Ashish Joshi, health correspondent at Sky News, to our A&E at King George Hospital.

Their report, which aired on Wednesday (4 June) and can be viewed on their website, saw a father struggling to get the right support when his son experienced a mental health crisis, a distressed woman lashing out at our staff in her desperation to leave the department, and body camera footage of patients needing to be restrained by our security guards.

It also showed the difficult decisions our staff must make in deciding the best place to care for these patients when our two specialist mental health rooms are full.

In April, almost 400 mental health patients visited our A&Es, 236 of them at King George Hospital. The average wait they faced for appropriate care was 19 hours.

I’m also seeing increasing complaints from other patients and their families about the environment they’ve had to wait in. They’re not blaming the mental health patients for being here, they just find it hard being in a really busy A&E with somebody who’s highly distressed while they’re with an elderly relative or sick child.  

It’s something we’ve got to work together to try to fix.

Volunteers’ Week

It’s Volunteers’ Week, a great opportunity to show our appreciation for our 340 volunteers.

They give up their time to help our patients and staff in a range of ways, from making cups of tea to supporting patients at the end of their lives.

Many of them have been coming to our hospitals for decades, such as Yezdi Maravala, also known as Les, who has volunteered at our Trust for 20 years. He comes in once a week to sit with patients whose family or friends aren’t able to visit.

He said: “It’s good that patients don’t feel like they are alone.

“There was one elderly gentleman who was feeling that his time was near. He asked me to hold his hand and we prayed.

“That experience meant he was well at ease. You could see his face brightened up, I felt I made a difference.”

You can hear from other volunteers about why they love what they do on our website. I’d like to offer my thanks for everything they do for our patients and staff.

Happy Pride Month 

Pride Month kicked off on 1 June and is an opportunity to celebrate our LGBTQ+ colleagues, patients, and communities.

We’ll be marking the month with a celebration event at Queen’s Hospital, while some of our team will be representing our Trust at the Pride march in London in July.

Have a great weekend.

Best wishes,

Matthew Trainer

Chief Executive