I hope you are well.

It’s hard to believe that today marks the two-year anniversary since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Covid-19 a pandemic.

We’ve all been impacted one way or another, and earlier today we held a memorial service with our staff to reflect and remember the lives lost and the sacrifices made by so many people.

While we won’t forget how hard the past two years have been, we can start to look forward and I’m pleased to see the number of Covid-19 patients in our hospitals continues to fall and that we are starting to navigate our way to ‘live with Covid’.

However, one longer term impact as we know is those residents living with Post Covid Syndrome (Long Covid). Our Healthwatch colleagues across Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge are working together to learn more about people's experiences who have suffered from this. If you have or think you’ve had Long Covid, please do complete this survey.

As we look forward and with numbers falling, we’re looking at how we make best use of the space used during the pandemic, to improve our services including in our Emergency Departments (ED).

Following a visit to Queen’s Hospital Emergency Department (ED) in November, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) recently published its report, and I was happy that the hard work of our staff working under pressure and positive culture was praised, and how our leadership team were supportive, while also prioritising patients.

The CQC’s inspection was part of a review of urgent and emergency care across north east London, and while we know changes are needed, the report also recognised a need to work in a more integrated way, something we’re already doing with our partners.

As highlighted in the report, we know patients are waiting too long, which is in part due to flow through the department. This week we launched a two-week initiative which has seen the former Covid Majors area of our QH ED turned into a new form of same day emergency care (SDEC).

Our aim is to provide emergency care for patients who would otherwise be admitted to hospital and I hope this new flexible way of working will help improve flow and reduce waiting time for patients.

Celebrating women at our Trust

This week was International Women’s Day and we’ve held a number of events for staff to enjoy, as we celebrated the huge contribution women make to our Trust, like Associate Medical Director Anushka Aubeelack.

Women make up 77 per cent of our workforce and International Women’s Day was an opportunity for me to reiterate there is no place for inequality in our workplace.

One of our key topics was the issue of sexism and how we need to tackle it. It’s a problem that has been highlighted in the wider NHS over the last year and too many women across our Trust are being treated poorly by male colleagues.

Earlier this week I wrote to our consultants, taking a clear stand against sexism, which you can read on our website. In the coming months, I will be working with our Women’s Network to raise the profile of our issues concerning women across our hospitals and to ensure we address these. There is no place for inequality at BHRUT.

In my latest video diary, I thanked the women across our organisation for their invaluable contribution in providing the very best care for our residents.

Kind regards,

Matthew Trainer
Chief Executive