Chief Executive Fortnightly Blog to NHS Orkney Staff

Message for All NHSO Staff 

Dear All

I know how busy the hospital and sites have been over the last few weeks and continue to be, how challenging things are and how hard everyone is working. Thank you for all you are doing and for the care you are providing to our patients and community, recognising these are difficult times and that many days the pressures feel unrelenting.

Having spoken to many colleagues I am getting a clear message that there are too many competing priorities and ‘asks’ being put onto people which are unreasonable. I want you to know that I hear this and that as we prepare for Year 2 of our Corporate Strategy which will set out our organisational priorities for 2025/26 that we are going to really challenge ourselves to focus on a core set of the highest priorities that we stick to for the year ahead so that the goalposts don’t move and so that the priorities we set are realistic, achievable, transparent and fixed and with this we don’t try to do everything at once. This, I hope, will also help line managers to set clear priorities with staff across the organisation so we get a connection between our organisational priorities and people’s personal ones. We will have a multi-year plan that will set out how we will make improvements in an incremental and sustainable way year-on-year. We have an Extended Senior Leadership Team meeting on 20 January where our circa 50 most senior leaders at NHS Orkney will come together, and one of the items on the agenda is our Year 2 Corporate Strategy priorities so we can begin getting feedback and sense checking whether our high-level thoughts for priorities for the year ahead are the right ones and are realistic, so that we can ensure your feedback is heard and acted on, as well as patient and community feedback, which will follow in the coming months.

Moving on – I’d like to remind everyone that there are many ways in which you can raise concerns, including those about safety, and places you can turn to. There are some links to the ‘Ways we Listen’ documents and related information on the  NHS Orkney Staff Wellbeing site, so that you have to hand the many places you can reach out to and make contact with if you have a question, concern or wish to speak up. This includes our Whistleblowing Champion, our Confidential Contacts (who are here to signpost you to support), our Employee Director, our Safety, Quality and Risk Team, your union and Counter Fraud, and of course your line manager to give some examples. We also have an anonymous feedback form that you can use if you want to share any feedback too. This is all part of creating safe spaces, ways and places for you to raise any concerns or questions and you having confidence you will be heard and that concerns will be followed-up and dealt with and the loop closed. We have lots more to do in this space, and continue to give this area much focus recognising how important it is in changing how we do things here for the better.

Best wishes.

Laura Skaife-Knight

Chief Executive