Dear colleague,

This week we launched our new Community Diagnostic Eye Centre at Barking Community Hospital.

A key benefit of this innovative new service, running in partnership with Moorfield Eye Hospital, is how it will reduce waiting times for our patients. As appointments will be for tests and scans only, it removes the need for a doctor, who will instead review the results remotely, and share the outcome with the patient and their GP.

It will help us see more than 8,000 extra patients a year for services such as glaucoma screening and will reduce the pressure on our ophthalmology services at Queen’s and King George hospitals.

The centre is part of our new Community Diagnostic Centre, due to open next spring, and I’d like to thank our Barking and Dagenham councillors, whom I updated at their recent Health Scrutiny Committee, for their ongoing support.

Improving access to urgent care

We’ve moved the location of our Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) at Queen’s Hospital, run by Partnership of East London Co-operatives (PELC).

This means patients won’t have to queue in the atrium and will wait in an area that’s more comfortable and much better suited to their needs. It also reduces the distance they need to go once referred to the relevant department. The UTC is now accessed via the old A&E entrance near the Oldchurch car park.

Over recent months our close working with PELC has helped towards the improvements we’ve seen in our performance, which means that, while we have a long way to go, more of our patients are being seen more quickly.

Disability History Month

Disability History Month gave us the perfect platform to launch our Workplace Adjustments policy, which sets out how we make adjustments to support our staff with disabilities and long-term conditions at work. I’m proud that it’s one of the first of its kind in the NHS.

It’s also given us a great opportunity to learn how we can continue to improve the experience of our staff at work and as part of our celebrations we’ve introduce our first Workforce Adjustment Coordinator, Rose Gayle. Read more about Rose, who’s worked at our Trust for almost 10 years, and is passionate about the difference her role will make to colleagues like her.

Best wishes,

Matthew Trainer

Chief Executive