I hope this finds you well.

As we come into winter, it’s really important we keep our focus on reducing the time our patients wait, whether that’s in our Emergency Departments (ED) or waiting for their planned treatment.

Our latest initiatives to reduce the backlog of appointments include the successful PrEYEority super clinic, which saw close to 1,000 patients in a week. This effort was on top of the Ophthalmology team’s usual services, with flexible evening and weekend appointments.

Our ‘Gastronaught’ project was also launched to reduce appointment delays, and saw waiting times slashed by five weeks and almost three times as many patients seen.

The work we are doing is having a positive impact - patients waiting 52 weeks or more fell from 1,938 in April to 1,188 in July - and we hope to cut this to zero by the middle of next year.

It is testament to the work of our staff that other organisations are learning from us and I’d like to thank all the teams involved.

The Evening Standard focused recently on the pilot work we’re doing with the London Ambulance Service (LAS) to reduce the time patients spend waiting to be handed over when they arrive in an ambulance.

These examples continue to demonstrate how it is by working together with our healthcare partners and our local authority colleagues, that we can deliver the best care to our residents.

Clinical strategy update

Listening to our residents to make sure we deliver services in the best way is also fundamental to this and I’d like to thank our stakeholders, partners and residents for taking the time to get involved in the discussions around the refresh of our clinical strategy.

Whilst we want to deliver this quickly, we also want to ensure we take the time needed to get it right. Through the discussions it was raised that the ambitious timeline we had set feels very challenging, particularly given the operational pressures we will continue to face over winter.

As a result, we have decided the best course of action is to extend the timelines to see us through winter and give us the time to do this work justice; I will continue to update you as it progresses.

Reducing our carbon emissions

With the COP26 summit underway, it’s an appropriate time to highlight what we’re doing in our efforts to go green.

In 2018/19, we saw a 25% reduction in our measured carbon emissions, compared to 2012/13.  

Thanks to a range of initiatives including our combined heat and power plant and LED lighting upgrades, we’ve saved enough carbon to heat 2,500 homes for a year.

Reducing emissions will help to improve air quality which is a factor we know contributes to poorer health amongst communities.

We’re encouraging our staff to play their part – not least by ensuring we all waste less – and we’re working on our own Green Plan that will launch in the new year.

Last but not least, if you’ve not had your Covid-19 booster or flu jab yet, please do so to help protect yourself and others this winter. I’ve encouraged my colleagues to do the same in my latest video diary.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and if you and your families plan to enjoy the fireworks displays, please stay safe.

Kind regards,

Matthew Trainer

Chief Executive