Need to know
For #TeamEEAST Last updated: 18 May 2024 at 23:06
Dear colleagues,
You will all have seen the heartbreaking coverage of Lucy Letby and her terrible crimes. I want to start by acknowledging how difficult it is to read this and to reflect on the impact on the parents and families concerned. For me, it emphasises the importance of continuing to develop a culture where patient safety is at the heart of everything we do, where our people are encouraged to raise concerns safely and where all of us remain curious and vigilant. NHSE has reiterated the importance of Freedom To Speak Up. I can assure you on behalf of the board that if you raise issues we will listen and take action where needed.
Remember you can speak up in a range of ways:
The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) has launched a new #SafeInTheBack campaign, which we’ve publicised on Need to Know this week, highlighting the danger of not wearing seatbelts or harnessing patients properly in the back of ambulance vehicles.
The campaign is founded on findings from a survey carried out by AACE last year, which discovered that during recent journeys in an ambulance only a low percentage of staff wore a seatbelt for the entire duration, with a high proportion not wearing one at all in their most recent journey.
The impact of not wearing a seatbelt can be incredibly dangerous, particularly given that you have no awareness of your surroundings when travelling in the rear of a vehicle. To support the campaign, one of our EEAST colleagues has shared their experience of being involved in a collision whilst travelling without a seatbelt.
It is law that we use a seat belt or harness in the back of an ambulance, the only exception being to undertake a time critical / lifesaving intervention, in which case you need to make the driver aware and ask them to pull over as soon as it is safe to do so. Once treatment has been delivered you must re-engage your seat belt before the journey continues.
Next month, we officially go live with the new Patient Safety Incident Reporting Framework (PSIRF). Many of you will be aware that these changes are taking place, and many frontline staff should now have completed their training.
PSIRF is a new way of working which will allow us to learn from incidents through open conversations with patients, families and colleagues. It will be a more compassionate way of understanding what happened and what we need to learn from it, on those rare occasions when something does go wrong.
It also gives us the opportunity to look at incidents at a trust wide level, spotting themes or patterns, and then taking a really focused look at those incidents to identify any common issues or learnings.
On a day to day level, there will be little change, but in the longer term I hope that PSIRF takes away that feeling of looking for blame and encourages a more positive, caring approach.
Over the next month you’ll see more information about PSIRF on your desktops and local noticeboards and there is a dedicated East24 page which we will be populating with all the relevant information. Thanks to everyone who has been involved in getting us this far, and to everyone who is now trained and ready for the change.
It is Sepsis Awareness Month in September and Learning and Development have organised a number of CPD courses to help raise vital awareness of sepsis. This short CPD session will cover causes, recognition and treatment of sepsis in both adult and paediatric patients. We will explore the UK Sepsis Trust Sepsis 6 pathway which has been proven to halve the risk of patients dying. We will have a short session from those living with the after effects of sepsis and how it has impacted on their life. This session has been created by frontline clinicians to enhance your assessment skills and support your practice. You can book the Sepsis CPD session here.
An important part of keeping our colleagues and patients safe involves making sure that we follow all IPC guidance. Recently we have seen an outbreak of Norovirus in our EOCs. Please make sure that if a location is locked down due to an IPC issues that you don’t go in (unless you have your manager’s permission) and that you take care to observe all the guidance including good hand hygiene and taking care in sharing food.
For those of you who are waiting for King’s Coronation medals, the Department of Health has now confirmed that these will be distributed to all ambulance trusts early in 2024. Once they have arrived, we will share more details about how we will distribute them to recipients. Anyone who is not eligible for a medal will receive a King’s Coronation coin. If you have any questions, please email coronationmedals@eastamb.nhs.uk.
Following last week’s update on the Time to Lead programme, we have responded to feedback from colleagues in the pre-consultation period, so that sector leaders have determined the final structure of the senior leadership team and the mix of the additional support roles – such as the Clinical Manager and the compliance and audit roles.
The teams have worked exceptionally hard over the past few weeks and we are now in a position where this phase is nearly complete. The plan is for the final structure to be reviewed at the Executive meeting on 5 September. If approved we will then move into the next phase of the programme – Formal Consultation with those people affected by the structure, as well as recruiting to the additional support roles. Team leader recruitment is yet to be planned as this is scheduled for phase 2 of the implementation, following the sector leadership structure.
We will schedule a Q&A meeting the week of 5 September for the sector senior leadership teams to confirm the final structure and next steps. Coming out into sectors with the programme has been hugely valuable. We will, therefore, be arranging a small number of sessions within sectors over the weeks after the structure approval, to present the final position, the implementation plan and what it means for your area.
I would like to personally thank each and every one of you for your patience, support and engagement with the Time to Lead programme. From the pre-consultation engagement, to the work on the final structure and the sector representatives working collaboratively on the job descriptions, it has been a very real example of how we can collectively work together to come up with the right way forwards. We have further to go on the programme, but are making really good progress.
Tom Abell has just celebrated two years as our CEO. In recognition of this we challenged him to summarise the last two years in two minutes and to produce a video in place of his usual monthly blog. Click here to see if he met the challenge!
Kind regards
Melissa
Interim Chief Operating Officer and Director of Nursing, Safety and Quality
Office of the Chief Executive
East of England Ambulance Service
Published 24th August 2023