I wrote my first of these stakeholder newsletters three months ago, in the week before lockdown was imposed. I have used them to capture the impact of the virus; the measures we’ve taken to mitigate; and to share with you the resilience of our staff and the ways in which they have adapted their work to respond to this disease. At the height of the pandemic, some of what I had to write about made sobering reading. 

I am therefore pleased this week to report that we have five Covid wards, down from a peak of 20 and more than 1,500 people, with either confirmed or suspected Covid-19, have returned home. 260 of these patients have recovered following a spell in ITU, including Steve Attfield who left Queen’s hospital after 70 days. His inspiring story of recovery from an illness that saw him spend two months in an induced coma prompted Matt Hancock to react on social media to Steve’s good news.

Non-Covid services returning to our hospitals

Our number one priority is to ensure that we have the most robust infection prevention and control measures in place to keep our patients, our visitors and our staff safe. To achieve this goal, we may have to offer services in locations that are different to where they might have been in pre-Covid days. I will update you about any changes in this newsletter and our website is where we will capture all our latest developments.

As I wrote last week, we are undertaking planned surgery at King George Hospital (KGH) and we will soon be increasing the number of face to face outpatient appointments that we hold there and we have introduced a new screening area where we will take a person’s temperature and ask a few questions before their appointment. 

BHR Health and Social Care Academy at KGH

This is an exciting development that will benefit those who live in our three boroughs. We’re working with our partners to set up this ground-breaking and innovative Academy. The goal of this collaborative effort across Barking and Dagenham, Redbridge and Havering is to help those involved to recruit and to retain staff and to offer productive and interesting careers. 

We are committed to investing significantly in our education facilities at KGH so that the hospital, in the years ahead, plays a pivotal part in the development of the BHR Health and Social Care Academy. 

Recruiting staff

The Academy is part of our drive to secure a stable and committed workforce in the future. We are also dealing with the on-going challenge of recruiting people in the present and addressing staff shortages, an issue that is exacerbated where we have a number of employees shielding, as is the case in paediatrics. We are going to reinvigorate our campaign to recruit consultants and build on the success we achieved last year when we filled 23 substantive posts.  

Windrush Day

The anniversary this week of the arrival in 1948 at Tilbury Docks of the first Caribbean migrants, who’d travelled there on-board HMT Empire Windrush, is another opportunity for us to celebrate the amazing contribution these individuals have made to our country and to the NHS.

The anniversary comes at a time when we are all reflecting on how best to respond, in a meaningful way, to the Black Lives Matter movement and to the impact Covid-19 has had on our BAME community. One of our practical responses has been to ensure that all relevant staff have completed risk assessments. Bev Thomas, one of our senior nurses, has written a blog in which she stresses the importance of these assessments and reflects on the death of George Floyd. 

A wedding day postponed, but not forgotten

During the six months I’ve been at our Trust, I have been impressed constantly by the ingenuity and resourcefulness of our staff. These attributes were put to good use, last week, when Leigh Kaniklides and John Tear had to abandon their wedding because of Covid-19 and their colleagues stepped in to mark the day.

Thank you for reading this newsletter and I hope you can enjoy some of the good weather that is forecast for this week.

Tony Chambers
Chief Executive