Need to know
For #TeamEEAST Last updated: 18 May 2024 at 11:28
This week, Mrunal Sisodia, took up his new role as our Chair and I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome him to the Trust. Mrunal has been with us as a non-exec director for the last three years and has worked with the NHS and government for many years in a professional capacity.
Over the coming weeks he will be out across the Trust meeting many of you and will be keen to hear from you about how you find life here at EEAST, what’s challenging and what you enjoy. Mrunal has also shared an introductory blog so please do take the time to have a read.
Celebrating our volunteers
The past few days have been a great celebration of our EEAST volunteers, and those of you who are eagle eyed on Instagram might even have spotted Jamie Oliver stopping to thank our CFR team in Saffron Walden. Thanks to everyone who took part this week, sharing your own experience of volunteering, joining our Instagram Live on Monday, or taking part in the Q&A session on Tuesday.
To say our volunteers make a big difference to our service is an understatement and we’ve already highlighted a lot of the ways they contribute to the care we provide for our patients. In my role as director of integration one of the volunteer groups I come across fairly regularly are our BASICS (British Association for Immediate Care) schemes who have been providing volunteer led pre-hospital care for over 50 years.
The BASICS volunteers are all doctors, critical care paramedics, nurses and paramedics who volunteer in their own time to provide advanced care to patients with life threatening illnesses or injuries. Dispatched in the same way as the air ambulances, the responders arrive on scene and provide prehospital critical care interventions supporting our own frontline teams. We are lucky enough to have four schemes here in the east, and over 100 BASICS volunteers, responding to over 150 calls every month. Each of the schemes are registered charities and pay for the equipment and training from donations or grants and trust fund applications. They work closely with us, agreeing to honorary contracts and we also assess them for blue light driving.
Getting to work alongside people like this is a real privilege and knowing that we have this huge army of volunteers supporting the work we’re doing, wherever they’re working in the Trust is really heartwarming.
Latest pulse survey results now in
This week we will be sharing the latest results from our National Quarterly Pulse Survey. As you know, this provides us with a benchmark of how you’re feeling about working at EEAST and helps us focus on what’s working well and where we need to make targeted improvements in the future.
I won’t go through the detail of the results as you can read more about them here. However, I do want to highlight the fact that it’s clear that more of you are having supportive conversations around your health and wellbeing, and also that many of you feel comfortable making suggestions around improvements, which is really positive.
This time around though, we had around 1,000 less responses and that can have a real impact on how the results are interpreted. We need as many responses as possible to get a clear and accurate picture. If less of you respond and we also see a decrease in many of the result areas it can be difficult to determine whether there are problems to be dealt with or if it’s just showing a dip as less people have responded.
I know each survey takes a few minutes, that on a busy day a lot of you just don’t have, but we need to hear from you in order to make the Trust the place we all want it to be. We’ve asked line managers to ensure you have time to complete these surveys so please do take the time when the next survey comes out in July, we really need your input to shape how we move things forward.
Cultural inclusion agents wanted
If you’re up for a new challenge and have a good understanding of equality, inclusion and cultural issues within EEAST and the NHS, then you might like to consider becoming one of our cultural inclusion agents.
Formerly cultural ambassadors, the cultural inclusion agent role is about challenging bias, discrimination or unfair treatment within disciplinary, grievance or interview panels, which concern allegations towards a colleague who comes under any of the nine protected characteristics. The role is voluntary but the agent’s involvement is crucial to ensuring that these processes are fair. We will be sharing more details on Need to Know in the coming days, so keep an eye out and do consider whether this would be something you feel you would like to take on.
Getting involved in Pride
Pride month is well underway and there are events taking place throughout June all around the east of England. As Kevin mentioned last week, the LGBT+ network get involved in as many of the events as possible, but this is all alongside their day-to-day roles so we’re looking for colleagues to get involved and represent EEAST at some of the events. That’s where we need your help.
The events are relaxed and fun and are focused on celebrating inclusion and talking to visitors about the Trust and possible roles and opportunities that could be open to them.
You can find a list of the events here and if you are able to take part then please email the LGBT+ network.
Thank You Thursday
"The call handler was calm, efficient, friendly and very professional throughout the call and I am sincerely grateful for his help. What a brilliant job you do!"
Thanks for everything you’re doing.
Kate Vaughton
Deputy CEO and Director of Integration
Published 8th June 2023