Thursday 29th December: Executive message from Tom Abell, Chief Executive Officer

I hope you have all had the opportunity to enjoy some time with family and friends over the Christmas period.

It continues to be busy across our region so I wanted to say thank you to all those that have worked during the Christmas period, whether that is on ambulances, preparing our ambulances, in urgent care, in PTS, in our control rooms, our volunteers and managers on call.  We could not provide the excellent care to patients without your support and hard work. This year we put out 40 more ambulances than last year and I am very grateful to all those that have volunteered for extra shifts.

Unfortunately, as many of you will have experienced first-hand, over the last few days we have seen the worst hospital delays of the year and we will continue to work with hospital and regional leaders to make improvements. Last night a Business Continuity Incident was declared as 161 of our resources were delayed outside Acutes. I am sorry for any colleagues who were affected by this, I know that you will have done all you can to keep our patients safe. Our senior operational team are working with system leaders to find solutions to the delays.

Our attention is now turning to preparation for New Year which is historically the busiest night of the year, and we are focusing on increasing our staffing on ambulances and in our control rooms. Currently we have taken steps with an aim to increase our resourcing by 20% above our normal levels.

2022 has been a difficult year across the NHS, including for us all here at EEAST. However, I’m incredibly proud of what we have managed to achieve over the past year by working together as a team – yes we still have lots to do and lots to improve on as an organisation but I believe more than ever that by continuing to be relentless in our pursuit of improvement in everything that we do, and by continuing to acknowledge and learn from our mistakes that we will continue to improve, both in the care we provide to our communities and in how we make EEAST a better place to learn, work and develop.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year and thank you for all your hard work over the past year. 

Stay safe and take care.

Tom Abell
Chief Executive Officer

Published 29th December 2022