Dear colleague,

Our teams have been working hard to cut the time our patients are waiting in our Emergency Departments (ED). Compared to February, we are now seeing 20% more patients in less than four hours. This is an impressive achievement and I’m grateful to our teams for all their hard work.

After many months as the worst performer in the country, we are now out of the bottom 10% nationally, above 19 other trusts, and are no longer at the bottom of the London trusts.

In our latest news story, figures show that in July, our Type 1 performance was 51.3 per cent, compared to 30.8 per cent in February – a big improvement in a short space of time.

I recently spoke to the Health Service Journal (HSJ) about this and the factors that got us to this stage including our Same Day Emergency Care departments (SDEC) where most patients are seen and treated in the same day without needing to be admitted.

However, underpinning all of this is great teamwork, leadership, clinical engagement and preparation and I’d like to thank everyone for their efforts.

Now our goal is to continue that improvement, including making sure that we manage winter pressures better this year than we did last. This means working with partners to keep people away from ED, and doing a lot more work to improve flow in the hospital, cutting length of stay, and discharging people earlier in the day. We know we still have some way to go but our work should be celebrated as we are heading in the right direction.

Whilst it is promising news about our ED waiting times, further strike action by our junior doctors is again hitting our waiting lists.

We have had to rearrange 1,118 outpatient appointments, and 86 non-urgent surgeries.

Across the previous strikes by junior and senior doctors we have had to rearrange 8,631 outpatient appointments and 626 non-urgent surgeries. The impact of the industrial action, including lost income, has cost our Trust around £4m. This doesn’t take into account the impact on staff morale – not only on those who are striking due to their wages falling behind inflation, but also the impact on those who are covering during the regular strikes.

I apologise to all our patients who have been affected. Whilst it doesn’t alleviate their frustration, a new website for patients in north east London has been set up to support them.

The Wait Well, Stay Well website provides useful information and links to local and national resources to help them manage their physical and mental health while they wait.

As always, I hope to see a resolution soon.

Top of the Profs

I started off writing about our staff and it feels right to finish on three colleagues who now hold the title of ‘professor’, the highest academic rank you can achieve.

Congratulations to Andrew Deaner, Site Director for King George Hospital; Kenye Karemo, Director of Education, Workforce Development and Research, and Darryl Wood, ED Consultant.

Their dedication to healthcare has seen Andrew teach and develop the next generation of doctors, Kenye help set up a bachelor’s nursing degree, and innovative nursing pathways for local people to start their careers at our Trust, and Darryl help launch research studies and platforms at our Trust.

Read more about their stories in our latest news article.

Have a lovely weekend.

Best wishes,

Matthew Trainer

Chief Executive