A reflection on the year (31st December)

So tonight we approach what is traditionally our busiest night of the year.

On New Year’s Eve last year, between 7pm and 5am alone, we took 1,616 emergency 999 calls here at EEAST. We’ve been urging the public to stay safe tonight, and I want to echo that with all of you – your safety and welfare really is of the utmost importance, so please take care if you’re working tonight.

I appreciate that I haven’t been with you for the whole of 2015, but a few things have really struck me during my time here.

There are a lot of things that we do really well; the passion, commitment and dedication of you all as staff and volunteers is at times truly remarkable. I feel like we have made a real shift this year in focusing on our clinical quality and the outcomes for our patients, which really is important. The consistently high feedback from our patient surveys shows the high standard of care that’s given to our patients every day. We’ve recruited and trained hundreds more paramedics, rolled out a huge defibrillator programme to the region, and above all, we’ve saved hundreds of lives.

That said, as with any organisation, there are a number of things that we can improve on in 2016; we need to look at how we respond to 999 demand, continue to try and improve how we use our resources (both emergency and non-emergency), and take a really in-depth look at our culture. We also need to make sure that we respect and value our support services colleagues for what they do, and continue utilising our volunteers in the best way possible. But these things should be seen as an opportunity to improve, to get better and to succeed.

The new year is our chance to really live our vision. To be innovative, responsive, excellent, always community focused, and always patient driven in everything we do. I have no doubt that together, it’s something that we can and will achieve.  As we enter 2016 I ask you all to remember - without each other we are less, but together, we are EEAST.

Here’s to a new year,

Robert

Published 31st December, 2015