Update from Anthony Marsh - 30th April 2015

I start my message with good news as we’re a step closer to our new vision and values this week; after more than 500 of you voted on what values were most important to you, 25 of our staff from around the region took part in a focus group on Wednesday to go through the results and together decide what the final ones should be. Thank you to those who took part, you have made a real difference to the future of our organisation. The vision and values the group chose will now be put to the Board in May to be signed off, and I look forward to sharing them with you soon. This work is the corner stone in creating a culture at EEAST that we can all be proud of, and once agreed we’ll all play our part in living up to those values in everything we do.

In other news, it’s the second in our run of spring bank holidays this weekend and we’re anticipating that it’s going to be another busy one. We are putting our usual measures in place, including having additional resources and cover in all areas to help ease any pressure. My thanks go to all of you who are working in whatever capacity; even as demand continues to rise you consistently deliver and continue to provide a good and reliable service to our patients.

Incidentally, I was pleased to see demand and the types of calls we receive actually hitting the headlines last week as national media covered our story about inappropriate calls. Calls about a ‘hit and run’ involving a squirrel, someone who had dropped their burger and a woman who was locked out of her house are just a few that we’ve received (you can view some of the others on our website). Whilst these incidents are few and far between in terms of the thousands of calls we get every day, it’s still important that we highlight them; we all know how precious our resources are and we need to take appropriate action when people waste our time. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback and support from the public on the back of the story and I’m grateful to everyone involved for their work in getting the news out there.

Published 30th April, 2015