Today (17 May) marks the next step of the Government’s roadmap out of lockdown. While recent wet weather has made it difficult to enjoy a coffee or lunch outdoors, from today pubs and restaurants reopen indoors, and groups of six people or two households will be able to mix inside. We can now also hug our friends and family, which I know will make many of us very happy.

However, with the recent spike in Indian variant cases, we must remember that the fight against Covid-19 is not over. Please continue to follow the latest social distance guidelines, get tested if you have any symptoms, and if you’re eligible for the vaccine and haven’t booked your appointment yet, please do as we continue to make north east London safer for our communities.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

At our Trust, we’re extremely proud of the diverse workforce and the communities we serve.

Making sure we promote a culture that is fair, where every voice is heard, is at the heart of everything we do, so I am delighted to announce Remi Odejinmi, a consultant anaesthetist at our Trust, as our first Director for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

Having worked with us for 20 years, Remi knows our values as a Trust. She has held various leadership roles including Divisional Director for Anaesthetics and most recently, led on our Clinical Strategy refresh.

Remi will take up her new role and join our Board in June, leading our efforts to ensure we think about equality and equity in all we do for patients and staff.

As we also mark International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia today, I’m very proud that we have signed up to Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme, making sure all LGBT+ staff feel welcome and included at our Trust.

Stonewall is Europe’s largest LGBT charity and runs the programme to help employers embed LGBT+ inclusion in their organisations and develop policies to support and empower staff.

As Victoria Miles-Gale, who is Chair of our LGBT+ Network, explained: “If you’re in the LGBT+ community and you see an organisation has subscribed to the Stonewall diversity champions programme, it tells you that organisation is taking inclusivity and LGBT+ issues seriously and wants to move forward.”

These are without doubt crucial steps in ensuring a fair and equal environment at our Trust.

Frailty unit opens at Queen’s

It’s fair to say that we’ve struggled with our performance against the four-hour emergency access standard.

So I am delighted that to help reduce waiting times in our Emergency Departments and provide a better experience for our patients, today we’ve opened a frailty unit at Queen’s Hospital to offer specialised care for elderly, vulnerable patients.

This now give us a frailty unit at each site and will help these patients get fast access to the right medical teams in an environment which has been designed to suit their specific needs.

By giving these patients the specialist care they need from a targeted team, we hope to be able to get more of them back to their own homes with support in the community, rather than needing to stay in hospital, which we know can lead to loss of independence for many of them.

I must also thank our local healthcare partners, including the London Ambulance Service, who are working closely with us to deliver this service.

Advanced Care Practitioners join King George Hospital

Focusing on our recovery from Covid-19, I previously advised you that we’ve restarted many of our services.

One of these is planned surgeries at King George Hospital and to compliment this, three advanced care practitioners (ACPs) have joined the team to treat, assess, examine and prescribe to our patients.

ACPs are highly trained health professionals and they will help bridge gaps between patients and our multi-disciplinary team, which will improve the patient experience when with us.

They are already well established as part of the surgical team at Queen’s Hospital, so I’m delighted that we’ve now replicated this at King George Hospital.

International Nurses’ Day

Celebrating our workforce is a key part of our focus on caring for our staff and International Nurses’ Day last week (12 May) gave us the perfect opportunity to show our gratitude.

Breakfast trollies full of treats were delivered to nursing teams across our hospitals, while different wards and department also held their own celebrations.

Our Chief Nurse Kathryn Halford visited different wards throughout the day and shared a thank you video for our nurses.

Going the extra mile for our patients

Jenny Clancy, a paediatric sister on our Children and Young People’s Assessment Unit, embodies what I’m talking about.

Jenny is passionate about making the hospital experience as child-friendly as possible for our young patients. To do this, she often involves a patient’s teddy when caring for them. From bandaging up a poorly teddy, to giving a favourite toy ‘medicine’, and even writing a young cancer patient a letter from her monkey, Jenny has done it all for her patients.

Stories like this are not a one off. I am surrounded by colleagues who want to make a difference for our patients and communities. So it was very fitting that Jenny marked International Nurses’ Day by giving a virtual talk to school children from Chadwell St Mary Primary School, Thurrock.

I hope you all have a good week.

Best wishes. 

Tony Chambers
Chief Executive