Dear colleague,

This week we launched our campaign to secure the funding needed for a new A&E at Queen’s Hospital.

It comes off the back of a December which was our busiest ever month with nearly 31,000 patients attending our A&Es. This means more and more patients being cared for in our corridors and waiting far too long to receive the care they need.

Our teams are working hard to provide as safe and dignified an experience as possible for patients in an environment which is totally inadequate. Every day, on average, they see more than double the number of patients coming into the department than it was designed to care for. On one day alone in December, we had 752 patients at Queen’s alone.

I’m grateful for the support we’ve already received from our MPs and would encourage residents to show their support by contacting their local MP.

Our campaign has featured on a number of local, regional and national media outlets including the Romford Recorder, Havering Daily, BBC London, Sky News and BBC Radio London.

A transformed department is needed to improve patient care, provide better working conditions for our staff, and end corridor care. 

Welcome Sarah!

We’re pleased to announce Sarah Betteley has been appointed as our new Chair and will start work with us next month.

Sarah is a lawyer with significant non-executive experience in the NHS, including being the Chair of Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, which she will continue.

I’m very much looking forward to working with Sarah as we build on what we’ve achieved recently at our Trust.

Her experience of working with community and mental health providers will prove invaluable as the NHS shifts its focus from hospitals to the community to deliver care closer to where people live. I’m excited by the opportunity this offers us to deepen our relationships with health and social care partners in our boroughs.

I’d also like to thank Mehboob Khan for leading us as Acting Chair for the past six months.

Have a good weekend.

Best wishes,

Matthew Trainer
Chief Executive