Thursday 3rd March - Leadership message from Tom Abell, Chief Executive

It is now more than six months since I joined EEAST as Chief Executive. We’ve had to rise to so many challenges that have been thrown at us, huge service demands, significant handover delays, another variant of COVID amongst others but throughout that time I have been consistently impressed and humbled at the commitment and passion shown by all of you for going above and beyond for our patients and our communities.

I also want to thank you for sharing your questions, suggestions and frustrations so honestly and openly.

I’d like to use this week’s message to update you on the areas I set out as my priorities when I started with the Trust as I said I would do when I first started.

Looking after our patients

After an intensive planning process, I am pleased to say that our winter response plan generated approximately 2,500 additional patient facing hours from October 2021 – January 2022. Clearly there is much more to do to make our service sustainable as we face the demand and handover challenges that we have across the region but I wanted to thank you for taking on additional shifts and being so flexible over the Christmas period. It really did make a difference to the care we were able to provide. 

The welcome addition of 117 more call handlers and the piloting of the deployment of specialist practitioners in our control centres also strengthened our ability to respond quickly to 999 calls. We are now managing around 10% of our patients through Hear & Treat and direct about 1,500 patients a week to other sources of help.

We also saw some positive impact of our end of shift trial, which is moving to become business as usual. Again, I recognise this is an area where we still have further work to help people get home on time.

I truly believe that our success as an organisation in the future is through developing strong networks and partnerships across our region and I’m pleased we have made some important steps forward here, including the establishment of cohorting teams at several of our hospitals. This approach has also allowed us to support our patients further with Silver Frailty Network Hubs and start developing our co-response partnerships with Fire & Rescue services across the region.

Looking after our people

You, and your colleagues, are at the heart of everything we do as an organisation and looking after your wellbeing continues to be my top priority.

Over the past six months, we have made steps forward in reducing employee relations cases with 76% of legacy cases now closed. We plan to maintain this momentum by recruiting eight investigators to take on the remaining cases, as well as any new ones. Additionally, suspension time has been reduced by 44%. We are also investing in expanding our permanent employee relations team so we can continue with this good work.

Providing the best possible HR support for everyone at the Trust, is critical, and we are creating a team of HR business partners who will support managers in recruiting staff more quickly and resolving any staff issues effectively.

Our welfare wagons have been out on the road providing free snacks and drinks to crews who are waiting with patients at Trusts across the region. These have been well received and we plan to expand this service further during the coming year. We have also developed our well-being services, providing more support for mental health and musculoskeletal injuries, and recruiting a new Head of Wellbeing who will continue to take this work forward for us.

We have transferred our trainees who were affected by the OFSTED inspection outcome last summer successfully to the new training provider Medipro and 49 of them recently completed their assessment. We have also secured a new training facility at West Suffolk College. 

Developing an inclusive culture

We have seen a 900% increase in colleagues raising concerns through our Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) scheme, about poor behaviours they have seen or experienced. It is a really positive step that colleagues are feeling able and are willing to talk. Much of the FTSU work is dealt with in confidence and it is therefore difficult to share specific details with you, but please rest assured that when concerns are raised, we are addressing them and taking action where it is needed.

We want to be an open, honest and inclusive organisation, which people are keen to join. With this in mind, we are in the process of recruiting cultural ambassadors who will help to ensure equality in both recruitment and at disciplinary hearings. I recognise we have much more work to do on developing an inclusive culture within our organisation and to support this I am looking with the Board to commission an independent review of race and disability at the Trust to help us identify the root causes and the steps we need to take to continue to tackle these challenges.

Strengthening Trust leadership and culture

We now have a substantive Executive Team in place with six new directors, four of whom are already in post. You can find details of the Board members here. The remaining two directors, Hein Scheffer (Director of Strategy, Culture and Education) and Melissa Dowdeswell (Director of Nursing) will join us in the coming weeks to complete the team.

You will be able to meet our new colleagues at the Trust wide Q&A sessions and in person as they get out and about over the coming weeks.

Feedback from the Q&A sessions has been really useful, and thank you to all of you who take the time to attend and participate. Going forward, we will be putting in place some new arrangements to make sure that you not only have the opportunity to hear from the executive team but also your local leaders across the Trust so you have the chance to discuss and resolve local issues and concerns.

Looking to the future

These are all small steps, but I believe important ones on our journey of improvement over the coming years.  As a team I believe we can achieve so much together.  I am often asked how we will know when we are succeeding.  For me, it’s about how you feel when you come to work and the feedback we get from our patients and communities about the care we are delivering to them.

My aim over the coming months, is that we continue to take steps forwards so you feel more supported and empowered, that you feel able to make suggestions to improve the way we work and that EEAST becomes a better place to work for all of us. By doing this we will be able to care better for patients and our communities.

The one thing that I would ask, is that you continue to share your views and ideas for improvement with us. As I said when I first joined EEAST, it is only by working together that we will achieve the changes which we all want to see.

I’m really excited to see what the next six months will bring for us all.

Tom Abell
Chief Executive

3rd March 2022