In my last blog I promised I would set out some personal priorities as CEO (in line with our existing strategy) that I have been talking through with the board and with some of you already – so here goes!
In no particular order of priority….
Developing a patient safety culture. We have really moved forward in the Trust in the 5 years I have been here about recognising and being open when we don’t get things right and sometimes cause risk to both patients and staff. But the absence of harm does not always mean the presence of safety. Our next stage is how we measure and celebrate safety and create a culture that supports learning – excellence reporting is a great example.
Getting things done. We need to make the organisation ‘work’ better and make it easier to do stuff – rapidly spreading improvements, using quality improvement methodology to solve issues and move beyond ‘business case’ culture. This is reversing learned behaviours over some time, so we won’t always get it right, but we should call it out when it happens.
Making decision making more transparent. We should be continue to develop as an open organisation and publish how we make decisions, so you can all see and comment on the choices we make. You’ll see this start to come through the daily staff bulletins.
Transforming the nursing workforce. I’m sorry if you’re not a nurse and you feel aggrieved that I haven’t singled out your profession – but the nurses are our largest part workforce, and we haven’t got enough of them. We need to make this a great place to be a nurse, but also recognise we need to create ward and community teams that embrace different skills and professions to generate true team working – we all have a role to play in this.
Sustainability. Our largest collective challenge is the unsustainable growth in emergency demand, from both a financial and quality view. Through supporting primary care, strengthening our community services, and getting the patients to the right part of our hospitals quickly, we will solve this.
The patient voice. Do we hear it enough? Great organisations design service changes in partnership with patients, and get better results. The development of the community hubs is a great example of this.
I hope this gives a sense of my personal priorities, and what I will be focusing on: I’ll be discussing these further with you through a series of staff events in the coming weeks. Would be great to hear your views.
Neil
Chief Executive blog for staff 