Dear colleague,

The end of March marked a key milestone for the Trust, when we saw the number of people waiting more than 18 months for their treatment reduced to zero. We’re one of just a handful of trusts to achieve this and it’s a fantastic accomplishment by the teams who have worked tirelessly to make sure our longest waiting patients get the care they need. I’d like to thank them for their perseverance and innovative approaches.

We are now turning our focus on our ambition to reduce the number of patients waiting a year for their treatment to zero by Christmas, ahead of the trajectory set by NHS England.

However, for a second month running, we have had to cancel outpatient appointments, diagnostic tests, and operations because of strike action by junior doctors from 7am on Tuesday 11 April until 7am on Saturday 16 April.

This has affected thousands of patients and every time there is industrial action, we run the risk of moving backwards.

We’re working hard to provide emergency and inpatient care however services will be under significantly more pressure as the strike follows the Easter bank holiday weekend and is during the school holidays when more staff are on annual leave. Find out more on our website.

I understand why they are taking action; I hope we see proper negotiations between the government and unions on junior doctor pay and a suspension of strike action in the future.

Annual goals 2023-2024

We’ve launched our annual goals, setting out our priorities for the coming year to improve patient care and staff experience.

They support our key objectives of improving patient flow through our hospitals from A&E to being discharged home; and making our Trust a better place to work for all our staff. Each of our six goals has an executive lead and a set of indicators against which we will monitor progress throughout the year.

The end of an era

We’ve finally closed the doors on our vaccination hub at King George Hospital after administering more than 138,000 vaccines. The team played a huge role in protecting staff and residents against the virus and I’d like to thank them for their hard work over the last two years.

Best wishes,

Matthew Trainer

Chief Executive