Like many parts of the NHS, the health service in north east London (NEL) is under significant pressure as we enter the Easter weekend. I am grateful to all our partners for the work they are undertaking to encourage people to only attend our Emergency Departments (ED) if it is an emergency and to contact the 111 service for all non-emergency cases. 

At times, across the country, people are waiting too long for an ambulance and ambulances are waiting too long at hospitals to hand over their patients. One of the reasons for delayed handovers is a lack of beds. We have a constant focus on the need to discharge patients as soon as it is safe to do so and we’re seeking to achieve this by having a senior doctor review every patient, in every bed, every day. Our Ambulance Receiving Centre is freeing up valuable paramedic time and allowing patients to be taken off a trolley and into a better clinical environment. We’ve also created a special area in the ED at Queen’s Hospital to provide care on the day and reduce the number of those needing to be admitted. 

While we are all learning to live with Covid-19 in society, it remains a pressure on services within our hospitals in terms of both the number of patients with the virus and staff absences caused by Covid. Our vaccination hub at King George Hospital is now offering the vaccine to five to 11-year- olds and Azmain Sikder, aged 11 from Ilford, was first in the queue. 

Reducing our waiting lists

We are keen to ensure that the pressure of emergency admissions at our sites doesn’t jeopardise our ongoing drive to care for those who’ve been waiting too long for their treatment after having had their operations delayed by the pandemic. My colleagues continue to find innovative ways of tackling the backlog. The Ophthalmology department laid on additional clinics during a recent ‘super week’ and saw nearly 900 patients. Patients needing a cataract operation are being treated within six weeks of being assessed. 

It was great to learn this week that the cancer alliance in NEL - that we are a part of - is the top performing one in England when it comes to achieving the Faster Diagnostic Standard for cancer patients. The target is that 75% of patients will be diagnosed or have cancer ruled out within 28 days of being referred by their GP for suspected cancer. The NEL cancer alliance exceeded this standard in January for the second month running. 

Our staff

You may have read the coverage in the Romford Recorder of our staff survey results. I am really saddened that fewer staff said they would be happy with the standard of our care for a friend or relative compared with the year before and, as I wrote in an email to colleagues, my senior leaders and I need to do more to make the Trust a better place for patients and staff. I am pleased we’ve launched our ‘Better Together’ campaign  to celebrate our diversity and heartened that our commitment to provide career opportunities to vulnerable and disadvantaged young people has been recognised. 

Our patients

A good way of enabling the voice of our patients and carers to be heard is by having them involved, from the start, when we consider any changes to services. The Trust introduced Patient Partners six years ago and has been a leader in this area. We recently relaunched our Patient Partnership initiative and we have some vacancies. If you would like to speak to someone about these voluntary roles, please email our Patient Experience team.

Kind regards, 

Matthew Trainer
Chief Executive