I hope this finds you well.

Ambulance Receiving Centre officially opens

This week I was delighted to welcome Dr Vin Diwakar, NHS England’s Regional Medical Director, and Daniel Elkeles, London Ambulance Service (LAS) Chief Executive, to Queen’s Hospital to officially open our Ambulance Receiving Centre (ARC).

We first opened the ARC in November, and in partnership with LAS we’ve cared for about 500 patients, reducing the time they would otherwise have spent waiting to be handed over to our Emergency Department (ED).

Latest figures show the ARC has released more than 2,800 hours of paramedic time for ambulance crews to get back out on the road in the first two months, as well as getting patients into a better environment. At the opening, Vin said the ARC was “a great innovation that could be replicated nationally.”

We are opening more beds at both of our hospitals in the coming months to try to remove the need for the ARC, but while our emergency care pathway is under pressure the ARC offers a good alternative for patients and ambulance crews.

Mandatory staff vaccine update

The government has announced it will undertake a consultation with the intention of ending the policy requiring NHS staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19.

We were expecting to be writing to staff who declined to be vaccinated to invite them to meetings where their contract of employment was likely to have been terminated, however, NHS England has written to all trusts to tell them not to serve notices of termination on any employees. 

As I’ve explained in recent weeks, we’ve spent a significant amount of time encouraging colleagues to get their Covid-19 vaccine and I want to thank everyone who has supported this work, especially our trade union colleagues.

We will continue to encourage staff to have the vaccine, despite the fact it will no longer be a legal requirement for healthcare workers to be jabbed. Our vaccination rate has significantly increased over the past few months, and nine out every ten of our frontline colleagues – who were covered by the legislation – have been vaccinated. Our number of patient-facing staff who are recorded as yet to have the vaccine has fallen from 1,300 to 441.

We know that the vaccine works and its important we continue to encourage our communities to book their first, second or booster jabs.

One person who is also passionate about encouraging vaccine uptake is 16-year-old Areeb Khan, who’s story you may remember. Areeb tested positive just days before the vaccine was made available for her age group and spent three months in hospital after collapsing at home with Covid-19 symptoms.

I’m pleased to tell you that we spoke with Areeb last week; she is continuing her recovery at home and her health is improving. She’s having physiotherapy and visits Queen’s for regular appointments. I’m also pleased that Areeb still wants to pursue her dream and become a doctor.

I hope you have a restful weekend.

Kind regards,

Matthew Trainer
Chief Executive