Leadership message from Dr Tom Davis

I will start this week’s update with the results of the annual national staff survey which have been published today. These results reinforce the findings of the Care Quality Commission’s inspection report published last September and our subsequent staff harassment survey.

We already have work underway to address these concerns and this will continue. Over the last six months, we have encouraged staff to speak up and speak out about poor behaviour, introduced a major programme of cultural change and modernised out-dated policies and processes. For example, we have seen more staff raising issues through the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian, union reps and managers. Increased staff numbers have added extra capacity and managers are getting additional training and development.

The Trust’s leadership has heard your concerns loud and clear, with both surveys giving consistent results from the same point in time last autumn. Our aim is to give you the same high quality experience you provide to our patients. We monitor progress closely in a range of ways - and I believe we will see early signs of progress in future surveys.

Equality and fairness in culture, development and opportunity were also key topics at the All Women in EEAST event held on Monday to celebrate International Women’s Day with our regional blue light partners. 

In terms of performance, we continue to provide our patients with a robust response as we come, hopefully, out of winter. The latest performance statistics are in our Board papers and can also be found in our new infographic , which we are also sharing with the public and stakeholders.

Over 90 per cent of you have received your first Covid vaccination and our programme of second vaccinations is now underway, so please do book in as soon as possible.

EEAST continues to make good progress on our CQC-related improvement plan, which includes the actions mentioned at the start. We will be sharing the latest update, which covers HR and employee relations and governance improvements, next week. 

Thank you for your time - and stay safe.

Dr Tom Davis
Interim Chief Executive Officer

 

 

Published 11th March 2021