I am pleased to tell you that we are now seeing very few admissions to our wards of patients who might have Covid-19 and the number of confirmed cases is down to single figures.  We continue to celebrate when people like Muthucumaru Yasocumaron are discharged home.  He told us the staff who cared for him for 98 days at Queen’s Hospital were “like angels sent from heaven to help me”.  Muthucumaru’s story of recovery is one of many we have been privileged to hear as we’ve responded to the pandemic. 

Third phase of the NHS’s response to Covid-19

While there is understandable concern about the prevalence of the virus in the community, inpatient numbers have fallen nationally.  NHS England has written to health leaders outlining what it describes as the third phase of our response to Covid-19. The letter’s authors write about a ‘window of opportunity’ between now and winter and call for an acceleration of the return to near-normal levels of non-Covid health services, making full use of the capacity available.

Our priorities

The letter sets out some demanding and ambitious targets. Our focus in the coming months is on restoring our elective (planned) care; expanding our critical care so we can respond properly if there is a second spike in Covid-19; and ensuring we can cope with the increase in admissions that will occur once winter approaches. 

The challenges these priorities present are significant. As I’ve written before, we have a segmented workforce because we’ve created ‘green’ and ‘yellow’ zones to keep our patients and our staff safe.  We also have a workforce that is tired; we are encouraging colleagues to take leave and to rest and recover. 

We are fortunate that we are not doing this on our own. Rather, we are working closely in north east London with Barts Heath and the Homerton to co-ordinate the care we provide. 

Planned surgery at King George Hospital (KGH)

One of the difficulties we’re encountering is people’s unwillingness to come into hospital for treatment. An impediment has been the length of time a patient was expected to shield before and after surgery. So, it’s good news that the latest NICE guidance is now offering a more flexible approach when it comes to such shielding.

People have also been concerned about being admitted to hospitals where the virus has been so prevalent.  Ray Potter’s message of reassurance is particularly welcome.  After undergoing complex surgery in our Covid-protected ‘green zone’ at KGH, Ray was keen to tell potentially nervous patients that they would be “well looked after” and there are “lots of checks in place to keep you safe”.

As you will read, Ray is full of praise for his surgeon, Thangadorai Amalesh. Another of our surgeons, Sas Banerjee, is celebrating the fact he’s been appointed a regional director for the Royal College of Surgeons. 

Attend Anywhere

It’s an inescapable fact that our waiting lists will increase in size before we succeed in reducing them. Our limited capacity is being used for those deemed to be priority patients.  We are also focusing our attention on the patients who have been waiting a very long time for their treatment. 

As well as exploring ways of increasing our capacity to treat both these categories of patients we will exploit all opportunities to conduct follow up appointments virtually and the NHS-wide initiative, Attend Anywhere, is likely to prove invaluable.

Risk assessments

In my July Board report, which I shared with you last week, I wrote about the priority we have been placing on conducting risk assessments for our at-risk staff, including our BAME colleagues.  I’m delighted that 96 per cent of our BAME staff have completed their risk assessments (at time of writing). 

The information we’ve gathered during this exercise will help us to understand where there might be areas of potential risk for colleagues and to support them as we restart our services and deploy individuals to the different coloured zones.  We’ve now been asked to undertake risk assessments for all our staff. 

BHR Health and Social Care Academy

The recruitment and retention of our staff will have to underpin all of the work I've been describing. With our partners in Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge (BHR) we're creating a BHR Health and Social Care Academy to train our workforce and to offer interesting careers to those who live in the three boroughs. 

We have a steering group; we’re establishing what the ambitions are of those involved and what we can do together; and we’ve appointed a Programme Manager. Narinder Chahal has extensive NHS experience and has worked on a number of projects across London. She’s keen to hear from people who would like to share their ideas on how the Academy should work. 

Our volunteers return

We have many very dedicated people who give up their time to help us in different ways across our sites. One of them, Edie Lay – who celebrated her 90th birthday recently – has notched up more than 28 years of volunteering with us.  At the height of the pandemic we had to pause our volunteering programme, so we’re delighted that we are now in a position for some of them to return. For Janne Cassidy, it was a no brainer when she was asked to help out at the ‘green zone’ at KGH.  

Time for reflection

The past few months has generated so much for us all to reflect on, not least the kindness many people have shown. Otis Griffith’s love for the NHS (in the form of a metal sculpture) is now on display at KGH. 

Our Lead Chaplain, Phil Wright exploited a brief lull in his busy workload to write about his personal experience of living and caring through Covid-19. The honesty of his account makes it a very compelling read.

Thank you for reading my weekly updates and I trust you continue to find them helpful. I hope you have an enjoyable and productive week.

Best wishes.

Tony Chambers
BHRUT Chief Executive