Earlier this week, I was delighted to welcome Shane DeGaris, the incoming Group CEO of our Trust and Barts Health, to Queen’s Hospital. As I mentioned in my video diary, we spent time in the Emergency Department looking at how we can improve the care we provide.

One of our successful initiatives is the Ambulance Receiving Centre (ARC) at Queen’s that is designed to reduce the time London Ambulance Service (LAS) colleagues spend handing patients over. Since it opened six months ago, the ARC has seen 1,534 patients and returned 10,772 hours to paramedics so they can be back on the road, responding to emergency calls.

We’re sharing what we’ve learned and the ARC model is being introduced in other hospitals. We’re working with LAS to explore other opportunities to improve capacity and reduce offload times.

I am happy that we’ve significantly reduced the length of the queue at the entrance to Queen’s. This has been achieved by true collaboration in action. We’ve worked with Partnership of East London Cooperatives (PELC), who run our Urgent Treatment Centres, so that our staff support GPs to streamline the process. Thank you to the team at PELC for working so well with us to make these changes.

Cutting our waiting lists

I’m proud of the innovative surgical work we’re doing to reduce waiting lists which has been recognised nationally.

Our latest Bones week this month is an example of this, where we exceeded our own expectations by carrying out 62 operations against a target of 50 in just five days.

Since launching in October 2020, Bones weeks have been key to helping reduce waiting lists and the team are already planning their next goal. Our Trauma and Orthopaedics team want to see 5,000 patients across a series of super clinics in the coming months. Well done to all involved.

The innovation and drive of our surgical teams also means we are coping well with challenges that come our way. Following a computer error which saw our waiting lists increase, our teams have been working extremely hard to cut the backlog and see patients whose treatment has been delayed by the pandemic.

Through overtime and running extra clinics and diagnostic sessions, the number of those waiting for more than two years (104+ weeks) has been cut from 218 to 72 in just three weeks.

Welcoming Abiola

Our maternity unit at Queen’s Hospital is the largest single site unit in north east London and I’m pleased the team has been strengthened by the arrival of Abiola Jinadu, our new Interim Director of Midwifery.

Abiola has 20 years of experience which has seen her take on a variety of maternity and nursing roles. You can read Abiola’s priorities for the department on our website. With her colleagues, she is working to ensure we provide a first-class maternity service where women want to have their babies with us in an environment that is attractive for staff.

I hope many of you can enjoy a shorter working week next week, ahead of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations. Please do remind our communities where they can get the right care during the extended Bank Holiday weekend.

If you are working at any of our sites over the long weekend, thank you in advance for your efforts.

I look forward to sharing my next update in a fortnight’s time.

Best wishes.

Matthew Trainer
Chief Executive