Need to know
For #TeamEEAST Last updated: 16 April 2024 at 17:19
Celebrating the diversity of our people
It’s important that we all feel able to bring our whole selves to work. This is important not only for ourselves and our colleagues but also help us deliver better care and service to our communities.
During October we are celebrating Black History Month, which this year has the theme of ‘Proud to Be’. Our Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) network has been working alongside the National Ambulance BME Forum to produce a series of videos which will be shared on social media throughout this month. Our colleagues Tanoh Asamoah-Danso, Robyn Simms and Navrita Atwal all feature in the videos which we will also share on NTK. You can follow and join the conversation on Twitter (@NatAmbBME) and Instagram (ambulance_bme_forum).
The BME network is not the only network having a busy month. On 18th October, the All Women at EEAST (AWE) network are hosting an event to raise awareness of the impact of the menopause. They will also be sharing information on the Trust’s new guidance around how we support colleagues going through the menopause. In addition, the network is recruiting AWE champions in every part of the Trust, creating safe spaces for people to talk and be heard in every part of our organisation. To find out more click here.
Preparing for the CQC and recognising our improvements
Last week, Tom mentioned that we are working to prepare for a visit from the CQC in the next few weeks. We have published a guide for all staff to help with these preparations. You can access it here, so please do read it and discuss the content with your teams.
Each week, we are sharing an aspect of our improvement journey with you via Need to Know Now, this week’s focus is clinical audits. Over the next few weeks, too, we are expanding the Thursday ‘We are EEAST’ briefings to include an opportunity for you to ask questions about the CQC visit, the focus for this visit and the improvements we have make as a Trust. This Thursday, Juliet Beal, Director of Nursing, Clinical Quality and Improvement, will be attending along with Tom Abell to answer your questions. We will also shortly be circulating details of further preparation workshops for staff.
Speaking up – why it’s important
Developing the kind of culture that we want to see – where everyone feels included and listened to – relies on you continuing to tell us about your experience of working at EEAST and raising any issues of concern either via Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU), the staff survey or the Chief Executive Office.
Remember, the national staff survey is live until the end of November and is completely anonymous so please respond, currently 20% of our people have responded and it would be great if as many people as possible can respond so we can understand what progress we have made and what more needs to be done in improving our organisation as a place to work.
As we mentioned last week, it is currently Freedom to Speak Up month and the national messaging is focussed on creating personal pledges in support of speaking up. Our own EEAST FTSU team will be sharing more on this over the next few weeks, in particular the work being done around Early Intervention training with HR.
Please stay safe
Covid Secure Rules are still in place across EEAST and we must continue to wear masks, observe social distancing and report any symptoms as soon as they arise.
Our vaccination programme is now up and running, thanks to all of you who have already attended. Please look after yourselves and your colleagues by making sure you book your flu and COVID booster jabs by clicking here.
Thank you,
Bob Champion
Interim Director of Workforce
Published 14th October 2021