Chief Executive Fortnightly Blog to NHS Orkney Staff – 8 July 2024
Message for All NHS Orkney Staff
Dear Team Orkney
In this week’s blog I focus on:
- Wimbledon
- Celebrating and recognising our longest serving staff
- Our focus on planned care improvements for our patients
- The importance of Extended Senior Leadership Team
- A final reminder – iMatter follow-up survey
We’re mid-way through Wimbledon fortnight. Thanks to securing tickets via the public ballot, last Monday I had the opportunity to go to Wimbledon and spend the day on Centre Court. I was struck by two things throughout the course of the day, which I draw parallels to in terms of what we are trying to achieve at NHS Orkney, and I wanted to share my reflections with you. First, I watched two Brits in action (one won; one didn’t). But what was clear, was the crowds were rooting for both players, because there was a single common goal – wanting the British player to win. Our common goal at NHS Orkney, and one I hope will get us all pulling in the same direction more of the time, is delivering our vision of looking after our community and providing excellent care. The second, from the moment you arrive at Wimbledon, to the moment you leave, it’s all about the experience. The parallel at NHS Orkney is that I want us to enhance our focus on people so we can make changes that ensure the experience of our patients and staff is the best it can be.
Last Friday marked the 76th birthday of the NHS. It was therefore poignant that the previous day we had celebrated our longest serving staff at NHS Orkney for their dedication and commitment to the NHS and NHS Orkney over the last 40-50 years. Recognising and celebrating Long Service matters to our staff, to our Board and to me personally. Our long serving staff are the backbone of our organisation, the DNA and make the NHS what it is – and NHS Orkney is no exception.
Remarkably, 10 members of Team Orkney mark between 40 and 50 years’ service this year, which is an incredible achievement. Together, these colleagues have 431 years of experience that our community benefits from – which is impressive to say the least.
I would like to name each of these colleagues in person in my blog this week to demonstrate what an achievement reaching these milestones is and to publicly thank each and every one of them for all they have done and continue to do for our patients and community.
I express my thanks and appreciation to: Marie Wylie (40 years), Moira Sinclair (40 years), Marie Garriock (42 years), May Leask (42 years), Joyce Muir (43 years), Julie Inkster (43 years), Michelle Mackie (43 years), Linda Tait (43 years), Patsy Hall (45 years) and Diana Smith (50 years).
When I came into post last year, staff told me they wanted Long Service Awards back – so we have listened carefully and acted on this feedback, and now have a new staff recognition programme, which includes recognising those with 5 years to 40 plus years’ of service, which I am delighted to see.
Moving on – last week at our public Board meeting I apologised to our patients and their families who are experiencing unacceptably long waits for care and treatment, recognising that our outpatient waiting lists are growing as are our longest waits (of 52-weeks and more). I know this isn’t acceptable and I don’t under-estimate the impact of these delays on our patients and patients’ physical and mental health. I am reminded of this on a regular basis when I see the letters of complaint I receive, and I know it isn’t good enough for our community.
I therefore want to share with you, building on my recent all staff briefing, where we are with waiting times and most importantly, what we are doing to see the improvements that are very clearly necessary for our patients.
Firstly, planned care improvements (including improving access to services, reducing our waiting times and offering virtual appointments to patients where appropriate to prevent unnecessary trips south) are a top priority in our recently-published Corporate Strategy. We will report and publish our progress against our priorities on a quarterly basis, with the first update due mid-July.
Our outpatient waiting lists continue to grow (based on latest published and validated data in April available in our Integrated Performance Report). For context, over 1,600 patients are waiting for new outpatient appointments; and half of these patients are waiting over the national 12-week standard and 79 of these patients have been waiting over 52-weeks. There are long waits in ophthalmology (eyes), dentistry, trauma and orthopaedics and pain services.
We have 303 patients waiting for inpatient treatment (operations), which is a slight decrease compared to previous reporting months, however, two thirds of whom have been waiting more than 12-weeks. 37 of these patients have been waiting longer than 52-weeks, all of whom are waiting for eye operations (such as cataracts).
If we look at waits for services in the community – we know there are longer waits than we would like in physiotherapy, podiatry and speech and language therapy.
Much work is underway to reduce our waiting times. This includes a recent deep dive by specialty at our Finance and Performance Committee where we completed a review of acute and community waits and a set of clear recommendations for improvement. These improvements include: a new Planned Care Board which is being stood up this month and being chaired by our Medical Director to ensure strengthened oversight of progress, a review of outpatient capacity needed to address the increased waits, continuation of our weekly waiting times meeting which is attended by our clinical leads, to work through solutions and continuing to work with other centres where we are reliant on visiting consultants or other Health Boards to deliver care and treatment for our patients.
We have refreshed our website with our latest waiting times, by speciality and this is available here: Waiting Times Report .We will update this page on a monthly basis to keep our community updated and share it regularly via our multiple communications channels, including via social media.
This week we had our latest Extended Senior Leadership Team meeting. This is a quarterly meeting where the circa 40 most senior leaders from the organisation come together to discuss the work underway to deliver our Corporate Strategy and the changes that are needed in how we lead in this organisation to ensure we set the right tone, lead by example, live our values more of the time and lead with hope, energy and optimism. We had a great session this week, where our focus was on collective leadership, our corporate strategy, planned care improvements, our Improving Together programme, our financial performance for months 1 and 2 and risk management training.
As a final reminder, this year we want to explore what we would need to do differently or change to respond to your feedback in iMatter. We launched a short follow-up questionnaire to pose the following questions for six focus areas:
- What does it mean to you
- What changes should we make, and what difference would you expect to see?
Your input will help us to shape our action plan, so we can make this as meaningful as possible. The survey is completely anonymous and closes tomorrow – Tuesday 9 July, at 5pm. Please have your say so we can make changes that will further improve your experience of working here.
Have a great week Team Orkney and see you soon.
Laura Skaife-Knight
Chief Executive