Dear colleague,

Our hospitals are being significantly impacted by industrial action.

This week Pathology staff, who are members of the Unite Union, went on strike because of their concerns about their pay and conditions. 

The two-day strike impacted a large number of community blood tests (run by NELFT and our GPs) as we were unable to process them in our labs.

From 19 September to 23 September there will be strike action by our junior and senior doctors – for 24 hours in this five day period, both groups will be on strike. 
We have had to reschedule nearly 200 planned surgeries and over 2,000 appointments as a result.

Across the previous strikes by junior and senior doctors we have had to rearrange 9,914 outpatient appointments and 777 non-urgent surgeries. The impact of the industrial action to the end of August, including lost income, has cost our Trust £5.9m.

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.

As always, I continue to hope for urgent resolution so that we can start to recover ahead of a challenging winter.

National survey shows improvement

The hard work of our teams in listening to our patients is paying off with the results of the 2022 national CQC adult inpatient survey.

It showed great improvements in nine out of 10 sections with patients praising how we involved their families and carers and reduced noise on the ward at night, allowing them to sleep better.

We’ve now moved from the bottom 20 per cent of all trusts, into the middle 60 per cent of trusts performing around the same.

This shows the positive impact our hard work is having on our patients and we will continue to focus on the areas where they have told us we still need to improve.

Comfier commutes for patients

Our close collaboration with Barts Health is again reaping benefits for our patients and communities.

We are joining forces with Barts Health to provide our non-emergency patient transport service which helps patients who would otherwise struggle to get to and from appointments because of a medical condition or mobility issue.

The new fleet reduces carbon emissions, and is comfier and more reliable.

Why BHRUT is a great place to work

This week, I had the pleasure of celebrating with five student radiographers from our Trust, Barts Health, and Homerton Healthcare who graduated as the first cohort from the North East London Imaging Academy after nine months of training.

This is a great example of the fantastic opportunities that our staff have access too and why we are a great place to work.

A number of staff featured in our latest recruitment video which we premiered at our Annual General Meeting this week.

In the video, our staff talk about what they love about their jobs, working here and why BHRUT is a great place to work not only people in our local community but all over the world.

I hope it will encourage people to want to join our organisation and have a great future with us. 

Matthew Trainer
Chief Executive