We Are EEAST Briefing 4th March 2021

 

This We Are EEAST Executive Briefing comes from Marcus Bailey, Chief Operating Officer and Kevin Smith, Director of Finance.

I wanted to start by giving an update in terms of recruitment for substantiative Chief Executive. As you know, since Dorothy left, Tom has been acting as our Chief Executive. The process is well underway in the sense of being advertised and the deadline for the applications has closed. We are expecting the short listing to happen over the next couple of weeks, then we’ll be looking at the process starting at the beginning of April.

Once a new Chief Executive is in post, Tom will revert to his substantiative role as Deputy Chief Executive and Medical Director. Obviously, there will be a handover period and a support period in that for any new Chief Executive. The exact timing on when that new Chief Executive would start will really be dependent on who that person is, and that would depend on notice of where they came from etc.

So, it won’t necessarily happen overnight, but it will be a phased handover which will planned. Nothing changes though from our point of view, obviously that process has been running on in the background anyway, and from our point of view, it’s been very much a focus from Tom and the rest of the Exec team with the Trust board, to make sure we deal with our longstanding cultural issues, that we look at working with the CQC, our stakeholders, and really getting underneath those challenges. You will have seen and heard from previous Exec Q&A sessions about some of the progress we’re making, and hopefully some of the conversations that we’ve had start to resonate and be seen down in terms of departmental and operational areas as well.

So, from my point of view, as I said, we will carry on with that as our normal busines at the moment, and the support of the Exec team in place to give that stability during this period as well.

So, I’m just going to, for the next couple of items, I’m going to hand over to Kevin to talk us through those as well.

Thanks Marcus, good afternoon everyone, hope you are all well, couple of things from me. Firstly, next Monday many of you may know is International Women’s Day, and the Trust is actively looking to celebrate that event. Again, as some of you may know, we have a very successful All Women in EEAST (AWE) network, and they’re holding a virtual event with Essex Police and Essex Fire and Rescue. There are some places still left of that virtual event, and you can register on that through the link on Need to Know, and I’m sure it will be very successful, so if you are interested you may like to do that.

During next week as well, we’ll also be highlighting profiles of some of our female colleagues through the week on Need to Know, and I think shortened versions will also go out on the Trust’s social media accounts. So, there’s some really good things going on there and I encourage you to take part.

The other thing I think, and I’m sure Marcus will come back on this as well, is I think we really just want to make sure that everyone is focused on wellbeing, both their own wellbeing and an eye on colleagues. We know it’s been a really tough period, and an ongoing period, and I know there’s an end in sight hopefully with the road map that has been published. But clearly there is still an awful lot to do and a long way to go.

So we just want to remind you really that a range of support is available to you, there are links on Need to Know, and hopefully you are aware of all of those. But we will also be running a new poster next week to highlight those support facilities that are there. Also, over the next four weeks the wellbeing team are doing some step up work to share some extra information and content that will come out on Need to Know each week. So please look out for that, and please look out for your own welfare and your colleagues.  

Published 8th March 2021