I’m delighted to start this week’s update by announcing the appointment of Dr Mamta Shetty Vaidya as our new Chief Medical Officer (CMO).

Mamta, who is currently Deputy Medical Director at The Royal London Hospital, brings a wealth of experience, having held roles as both clinical and divisional director, and leading the Clinical Transformation team, focusing on flow and discharge, as well as patient safety.

She also leads the Pan London Improvement Collaborative for children and young people with a focus on integrated care as a way of improving life chances for children and families.

While we look forward to welcoming Mamta when she officially joins us in May, we will be sad to say goodbye to two members of our Executive team.

Our current CMO Dr Magda Smith, who has been with the Trust for more than 25 years, is joining Barts Health as Group Deputy CMO, and Dr Remi Odejinmi, our Director for Equality, Inclusion and Diversity (EDI) will take up a new role as Medical Director at Whipps Cross Hospital.

Magda and Remi have played a pivotal role in helping us deal with the very worst of Covid-19 and I wish them all the best in their new exciting roles.

New service launched for patients and GPs

As we learn to ‘live with Covid’, we are continuously looking at ways to improve our services, especially those impacted during the pandemic.

While we have made fantastic progress in reducing our waiting lists, many people are still waiting for appointments, and we understandably receive a lot of enquiries.

To help us respond quicker, we’ve launched a new service which allows patients and GPs to contact a dedicated helpline if they are having difficulty accessing their care of appointment.

Our new Access Issues Resolution Service (AIRS) will investigate and respond to patients within 24 hours with a plan to resolve their query, which I hope will improve patient experience, reduce complaints and strengthen our relationship with GPs across our boroughs, which is vital as we work together as a system to deliver the best care for our communities.

I hope we will start to see a positive impact the service will have very soon.

System colleagues visit Queen’s Hospital

Last week I visited different sites across our Trust, which you may have seen in my latest video diary.

I was delighted to welcome Zina Etheridge, Chief Executive Officer for North East London’s Integrated Care Board (ICB), and Ceri Jacob, Managing Director for BHR Integrated Care Partnership (ICP), for a tour of Queen’s Hospital where I was able to showcase some of the fantastic work we’re doing.

I also visited Barking Community Hospital with Chair Jacqui Smith and spent time with our radiology, sexual health and inflammatory bowel disease teams, where we are delivering a number of services in the community.

Please do take a look.

Kind regards,

Matthew Trainer
Chief Executive