May Board reflections

Being ambitious about performance expectations and an excellent paramedic recruitment drive were some of the highlights emerging from last week’s Board meeting (28^th May).

Staff and volunteers were also thanked for the actions they are taking to support the performance improvement action plan, introduced by CEO Anthony Marsh earlier this year.

During the meeting in Harlow, Essex, the Board was told that the Trust is more than halfway to the target of recruiting 400 paramedics by March 2015. Anthony Marsh said: "I’m really pleased to be reporting this tremendous reaction to our recruitment drive. It is part of the improvement process that we need to take forward to support our current staff who are under a lot of pressure; filling these vacancies is a really important step forward.”

Non-executive Board member Andrew Egerton-Smith also praised the student paramedic cohort he met in Norwich, saying he was “immensely impressed by the humour and the professionalism”, and for the way the training was being run.

The meeting also discussed patient experiences, compliments and complaints, serious incidents, governance and the performance in each locality. It was agreed that more staff engagement is needed locally around the staff survey, and how bullying and harassment – a big theme being reported in last year’s survey – was being tackled in Essex where it was reported the most.

Also during the meeting:

• Trust Chair Sarah Boulton thanked the guests and the organisers of the recent awards ceremony for an enjoyable evening (video available)
• Dr Marsh reported local engagement with MPs and other stakeholders, as well as national representation of the ambulance service including the recent ASI awards where a Suffolk paramedic won the Paramedic/ECP of the Year award.

Sarah added: “The performance improvement action plan is really getting performance back on track. Many people have taken action to provide us with the right direction and a number of obstacles have been removed; we would now expect to see improvements in performance and I urge the Board to be more ambitious about what to expect from this organisation.”

All staff are encouraged to attend Board meetings if their working arrangements allow. The next one is due at the end of July in Cambridgeshire and details will be reported in NTK very soon. If you use Twitter you can follow @EastEnglandAmb’s live meeting feed and/or #EEASTboard.