Dear colleague,

One of our priorities this week has been to try and see everyone who has been on our waiting list for more than eighteen months, in line with an NHS England deadline to clear this particular backlog. We were down to six such patients a few days ago. Our plans were obviously adjusted during the junior doctors’ strike when we had to cancel more than 2,000 outpatient appointments and some 200 non-urgent operations. The same is likely to happen again if their next planned industrial action goes ahead in April. As I’ve said before, I have sympathy for the concern of junior doctors about their pay and conditions and I hope a resolution can be found.

Our teams are constantly coming up with initiatives to cut the time our residents spend waiting to be seen. The WOMB (Women’s Outpatients Management Blitz) project saw around 440 patients across six weeks at the start of this year and we recently tripled the volume of surgery in one theatre. This drive and commitment are why we’re confident of reducing to zero, by Christmas, the number of people waiting for more than a year for treatment.

The start of a new financial year is always the time when organisations make clear what their priorities will be for the next twelve months. I will write more about our annual goals in the coming weeks. One of my objectives – and I am keen our senior leaders have just a few, deliverable ones – is to make our Trust a better place to work. Our recent staff survey results provide plenty of evidence as to what we need to do. Working in healthcare can be traumatic and we are now providing more support to staff during difficult times.

I was heartened by the fact that the support we offer the nurses and midwives we recruit from other countries has been acknowledged nationally, especially given that an extra 150 nurses from India will be joining us soon. And on the subject of awards, it was great to be recognised for all the innovation on display across the Trust.

One aspect of our work to transform our organisation involves changing the way we run the hospitals to improve the experience of staff and patients. As part of this restructuring, we will be advertising for a permanent Chief Operating Officer.