In the run up to Christmas, I hope as always this finds you well, although I appreciate with the increase in Covid cases in our boroughs, it may not feel as festive as we would like.

The latest Government data suggests Omicron is extremely transmissible, with cases doubling every few days. Protection is significantly reduced for those who have had two doses of the vaccine, which highlights just how important it is to have your booster jab, which increases protection to over 70 per cent.

I’m very proud of my colleagues who are helping to protect our communities. Last weekend, we delivered more than 1,900 jabs across our King George Hospital vaccination hub and a pop-up hub in Dagenham Library. Well done to all involved.

We must all continue to take the necessary precautions to keep ourselves and our families safe –  please wear your mask, social distance where possible, and most importantly, please have your vaccine, including your booster jab.

It’s worth noting that eight in 10 people currently in intensive care units across north east London with Covid-19 are not fully vaccinated.

Christmas in our hospitals

We know the festive season can be difficult for those in hospital, so we’ve updated our visiting guidelines so that patients can see their family members.

On Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, every patient will be able to have one named visitor per day at a time agreed, in advance, with the ward.

Being in hospital over the festive season is especially hard for our younger patients and I was heartened that West Ham United kindly donated goodie bags, which as you can imagine put a smile on a lot of faces!

Our Chief Medical Officer Magda Smith handed out the gifts with colleagues from our children’s ward, and said it gave her great joy.

We’re very grateful to West Ham for the continued support shown throughout the year. Acts of kindness such as this lift the morale of our patients, their families, and our staff.

An update on our clinical services strategy

Lastly, I’d like to update you on our clinical strategy refresh. In recent months, we’ve been working with you, our staff and residents to look at how we can best deliver hospital services for local people.

I’d like to thank those of you who have been involved in the process so far, whether that’s taking part in our listening events, workshops and interviews, or promoting the opportunities for our residents to be involved. It’s a positive demonstration of partnership working and will ensure that we don’t look at our hospitals in isolation, rather we work together as a system.

With the current operational challenges of Covid-19 and winter, our clinical teams and many of our stakeholders believe we need to focus on managing the coming months and we have therefore decided to pause any further work on the refresh for now.

You can review our progress to date and our high-level findings on our website. I look forward to working with you again when we restart.

I do hope you get to relax and enjoy some time with your families over the next couple of weeks and I will be back in touch in January.

Merry Christmas and happy new year.

Kind regards,

Matthew Trainer
Chief Executive