Need to know
For #TeamEEAST Last updated: 04 May 2024 at 23:00
Hello everyone. Although it’s been great to have a bit of sun over recent days – we have to recognise that alongside everyone within the NHS it’s still a really challenging time for us here at EEAST. We are still seeing a lot of pressure on the urgent and emergency care system due to increased demand on hospitals, and an ongoing increase in the number of our people who aren’t able to work as a result of having to self-isolate because they have positive for COVID. Thank you for everything you are continuing to do to keep our patients and communities safe despite these challenges.
I also particularly wanted to use this message to recognise the huge amount of work that everyone in our COVID team is doing to help support those of us who have and are, unfortunately, still catching COVID and the work they are doing to help get people safely back to work.
From what the scientists are saying, we are going to continue to see increasing COVID rates in the coming weeks, so please keep yourself and your colleagues safe by continuing to follow our COVID guidance which you find here.
Racism Pledge commitment
As a team I know we’re all committed to eliminating discrimination in all its forms across our organisation. As part of this ongoing commitment we recently signed up to the new Anti-Racism Charter published by UNISON.
The Charter aims to tackle racism in the public sector and EEAST is the first NHS Trust to sign up. It’s about recognising the impact racism can have on our people, having a real and visible anti-racism programme in place to improve equality, diversity and inclusion and building an organisation that’s representative of the community that we serve. There’s also a focus on training, highlighting ethnicity pay gaps and ensuring fair process during formal proceedings, whether that’s applying for a job or a disciplinary process.
I recognise that there’s more work for us to do across all protected characteristics, and this is a very important part of our wider approach to improving inclusivity across our organisation.
New learning space for our apprentices
From this month, all our apprenticeship pathways will be supported under one roof, at West Suffolk College in Bury St Edmunds. We hope that bringing the function together in one place will provide a much better experience for both learners and educators, with teaching for all level 4 apprenticeships (in partnership with MediPro) and the Paramedic Degree Apprenticeship (in partnership with the University of Cumbria) all taking place on site. We have secured the college premises initially until the end of the year, but we’re hoping to extend the arrangement.
Local Q&A sessions
This week we’re holding the second wave of our local Q&A sessions, on Thursday 24th March. Thank you to everyone who has already attended a session and asked questions to date. You can find details of this week’s sessions here and you will be directly emailed a link to join, by the team running the briefing for your sector or team.
VCOD plans revoked
We now have an update around Vaccination as a Condition of Deployment (VCOD), which I know has caused much uncertainty over the past couple of months. On 1st March, the government announced that they will revoke VCOD.
Having said that, vaccination continues to remain the best line of defence against severe infection and at EEAST we will continue to engage with colleagues who are not yet vaccinated. The government will also be aligning COVID-19 with updated infection prevention and control (IPC) guidance for registered providers of health and social care. NHSE will be publishing an updated set of FAQs and we will publicise the link to this when it is.
Please check the pre-election guidance
With local elections coming up at the beginning of May, as NHS employees we must all be careful around our interactions with political representatives and local campaigns during the pre-election period.
At EEAST, this period begins for us on Monday 28 March 2022. You should all have received an email this week with details of what this means for us in terms of visits and meetings. Please do take the time to read through the guidance. Further information and contact details for our Public Affairs team are available here.
Tom Abell
Chief Executive
24th March 2022