Fit for the Future blog: February

This is the second of our Fit for the Future monthly blogs to let you know about the progress that is happening at EEAST. Fit for the Future is our change programme which brings together all our projects and workstreams aimed at improving our service for patients and communities and making the Trust a better place to work.

In January 2022, we produced our first Fit for the Future podcast in which Emma De Carteret, our Director of Corporate Affairs and Performance, spoke about the ‘Delivering Impact’ workstream. We had some really positive feedback at a recent Trust-wide Q and A and if you haven’t listened to the podcast already, you can listen to it here. As ever, we welcome your feedback and you can let us know your thoughts on the podcast by contacting the Communications Team.

January saw us taking some important steps in supporting everyone who works for EEAST. Our emerging People Strategy is based on the NHS People Promise which sets out what we want for everyone working within the NHS.

Progress will be measured through the annual NHS National Staff Survey, the People Pulse and our Harassment and Bullying Survey. The results of the 2021 staff survey will be published at the end of March, and you will be able to assess where we are as an organisation. Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback - it is very important to us as it informs us what we need to prioritise in our improvement journey.

Based on the People Promise, we are developing a Leadership Way which will set out the behaviours we expect from our leaders, at all levels in the Trust, so that all our managers have the skills needed to manage their teams in line with our values. There will be an event at the end of March for all of our senior leaders to start to progress this work.

Marika Stephenson, our new Executive Director for People Services, joined EEAST in December 2021. She is leading the Fit for the Future ‘Workforce Development’ workstream as well as the HR Directorate, now named People Services. The renaming was one of Marika’s first actions as it better reflects her vision for a function that serves all the people who work for EEAST. 

In line with that vision, Marika is currently developing our People Strategy along with strengthening our People Team. The future People Services function will have the following main aims:

• Supporting the recruitment and retention of high-quality people so that we can better serve our community and our people.
• Create a Health and Wellbeing service that best supports the mental and physical wellbeing of all our colleagues.
• Provide joined-up support for people that reduces their administrative burden. 
• Provide a high level of strategic expertise on people-related matters to all Directorates.
• Partner with the Directorates to identify opportunities, address concerns and implement solutions to ensure a better employee experience for all.

As part of this, we are making the following investments:

• Upskilling and increasing our People Services Team. In December 2021, we agreed on funding for a dedicated Employee Relations and Investigation Team to work with managers on resolving current and future employee relations cases.
• This year, we will go further by: 

o   Creating a team of Business Partners aligned to the Operational and Support teams who will provide high-quality advice and support to managers.

o   Establishing a Resourcing and Support Services Team freeing up recruitment managers to collaborate with local managers on forecasting recruitment needs, helping with hard-to-fill vacancies and making it quicker to hire and onboard new people.

o   Implementing a shared services centre enabling people to access information and answers relating to pay, benefits and other resourcing queries.

• We have hired a People Services Transformation Director, Cathy O’Driscoll to implement this programme of work alongside the rest of the People Services management team.
• Another crucial area is supporting your health and well-being. On 14^th February, we welcomed Martin Short, our new Health & Wellbeing Manager, to the Trust. Martin is interviewing to fill roles within the Health and Wellbeing Team and we will introduce these new colleagues over the coming weeks and months.

Our staff recognition also received a boost in February with the launch of Greatix, which not only recognises great people, but also captures the learning from these positive events so that it can be embedded into Trust practice.

In February’s payroll, we paid an aggregated amount of Holiday pay on Overtime to qualifying employees in line with the interim agreement made through the National Ambulance Strategic Partnership Forum to ensure overtime and additional basic pay are included in payments for holiday pay.

Lastly, I would like to welcome Kate Vaughton, our new Executive Director for Integration. Kate will lead our work with NHS systems and other partners across our region, building on the results of our recent partnerships survey and making sure that the EEAST voice is heard as the newly formed Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) emerge. This is important because having good relationships with commissioners and partners helps us identify new care pathways for patients which, for example, can avoid bringing patients to A&E.

I hope you have found this update useful and that you find Fit for the Future as exciting as I do in delivering tangible benefits to all of us at the Trust and our communities.

 

For further information

• Please email Internal Communications to let us know if there are areas that you would like to know more about.
• Please listen to the latest podcast here

 Published 4th March 2022