Our annual plan for 2024/25 has been published, which sets out the work we’re doing towards improving patient care and staff experience via our six annual goals. You can read our annual plan, or annual plan summary, on our plans, reports and strategies page.

Our annual goals for 2024/25 are:

• Deliver high-quality, patient centred care
• Create a diverse and inclusive workplace
• Maximise capacity utilisation and improve performance
• Make better use of resource to get financially fit
• Be a good partner and proactive contributor in our local economy
• Address the inequalities experienced by staff and patients.

You can read more about our annual goals here.

We’ve already made lots of progress in improving our performance, ending 2023 as the most improved Trust for reducing waits for emergency care, and hitting the national recovery target for four-hour A&E performance of 76% in March. New initiatives like Same Day Emergency Care (SDEC) at King George Hospital will ensure this continues, as will our plans to redesign our A&E at Queen’s Hospital, a department built to accommodate 300 people, yet often sees up to 600 patients a day.

The expansion of our Elective Surgical Hub at King George Hospital, with two new theatres opening this month, will help us carry out up to 100 more operations every week, ensuring more patients get the care they need quicker.

One of our main aims in the coming year is to continue to improve our partnerships for the benefit of patients across north east London. This will include focusing on our Acute Provider Collaborative (APC), which brings together our Trust, along with Barts Heath and Homerton Healthcare. Alliances like this will help to reduce health inequalities across the boroughs we serve.

We’re looking forward to the introduction of our electronic patient record (EPR) next year, a ‘game changer that will move our Trust out of the dark ages’. It will allow our staff to easily access all relevant patient information as well as order diagnostic tests, and enable colleagues at Barts Health to access the records of patients receiving care across both trusts.

More exciting developments to come include the opening of St George’s Health and Wellbeing Hub in Hornchurch this summer. This will provide additional capacity while delivering services closer to patients’ homes. It follows the recent opening of the Community Diagnostic Centre at Barking Community Hospital, also helping to provide additional diagnostic testing for patients in the community.

To ensure we achieve our goals, they sit alongside the following four priorities for our executives:

• Cut waiting times for patient for A&E, cancer treatment and hospital appointments
• Make this a better place to work, as shown by better NHS staff survey results
• Don’t waste money! Keep to headcount, cut agency use and carry out fewer unnecessary tests
• Get ready for the Electronic Patient Record.

Matthew Trainer, our Chief Executive, said: "Our annual goals help us focus on the key aims we want to achieve in the coming year to improve patient care, and to make our hospitals a better place to work for our staff.

“We’ve made some progress in reducing waits for patients in our A&Es, and we’ve got lots to look forward to over the next year with the opening of our new theatres and community diagnostic centres.  These will help us continue getting more patients the care they need more quickly.”