CQC report recognises improvement at EEAST

I can now share with you the results of the CQC inspection which took place in April and May this year which you can read or watch the video message below.

I am pleased that the CQC recognised all your hard work, kindness and compassion towards our patients. They observed you working well as a team for the benefit of our patients and involving patients and their families in that care. The executive team has already taken steps to increase their visibility across the organisation, and will continue to do so.

The report also recognised that we have made marked improvements on issues that we needed to address from previous inspections including:

• Tackling bullying, harassment and discrimination
• Dealing with employee relations cases
• Improving the culture of the Trust with the initiatives such as the cultural ambassadors and the Speak Up Speak Out campaign
• Improving wellbeing support for our people
• Making it easier for people to give feedback and raise concerns about the care received.
• Treating concerns and complaints seriously and learning from them.
• Strengthening the leadership team with a stable Executive team and Board in place, which will drive improvements in the Trust in the years ahead.

However, this is only the first step in our work to improve our culture and our service; we know we still have much to do and as you would expect, the CQC also identified several areas for improvement, including the need to:

• Improving staff morale and engagement across the Trust
• Improving access to training and the numbers of you having regular appraisals and 1:1s with your managers
• Managing the impact of the Trust being on heightened surge levels for extended periods of time and the impact on our ability to respond to patients
• Ensuring that work areas are kept clean and in good condition.
• Improving recruitment and retention in our AOCs.

We have taken this feedback very seriously and are addressing these issues. You can find further detail about the steps we are taking here. We have also arranged two briefing sessions for staff with the chance to ask questions so please join one:

Thursday 14 June at 1000 hours

Thursday 14 June at 1800 hours

These actions, alongside the ongoing work we have to do to improve our service and our culture, will only be achieved by us continuing to work together as one team, by tackling the challenges we face head on, and being persistent and determined as we work through these issues and rise to the challenge we face. This will be the work of months and years, but a job I believe is achievable.

You can read the full inspection report here. 

Thank you for everything you continue to do for our patients, for our communities and for our service.

Tom Abell
Chief Executive

 

Published 12th July 2022