Chief Executive Fortnightly Blog to NHS Orkney Staff - 6 May 2025

Message for All NHSO Staff 

Morning all

Thanks so much to those who worked over the Public Holiday weekend to care for our patients and welcome back to those who, I hope, have benefited from the long weekend with the opportunity for some downtime and family time.

I wanted to start by recapping on some of the key messages following last week’s announcement about Scottish Government showing their support for NHS Orkney by offering transitional funding to give the organisation a clear path to financial balance and de-escalation.

Firstly, I want to reiterate that this additional non repayable funding of £5m over 4-years is a real show of support from Scottish Government for the leadership of NHS Orkney, our organisation-wide approach to improvement and recognition of our progress to date. It shows confidence in this organisation and the credibility we have regained.

It is good news for NHS Orkney and should provide us with hope and optimism for the future – including that we can continue the improvement journey we have started and do this in a way that is right for NHS Orkney and our community.

The conditions that come with this funding were largely what we were already doing, and we believe are achievable even though this will not be without challenge.  We will have to make more difficult decisions along the way and commit to moving from transactional to transformational change. We know what needs to be done to ensure we have a clinically and financially sustainable future and this funding supports us on this journey and path we are on.

The main message here I want to reinforce is that jobs and pay are secure and that there will not be any redundancies – as I don’t under-estimate the anxiety and concern that talking about headcount and reviewing bandings causes. Jobs and pay are secure.

What we must do (and again are already doing) is scrutinise every vacancy as it comes up and ask ourselves – is a like-for-like replacement the right solution, is there a different or better option for this role or indeed team in some cases when it comes to how we set ourselves up and with this, is this post needed at all in its current form and banding? All of these are entirely reasonable questions and ones we already pose.

This is about delivering safe and excellent care by looking at different and new ways of working so that we enable sustainable and affordable service delivery. We have arranged two 30 minute staff briefing sessions this week (Wednesday and Thursday) and the details and links can be found in last week’s bulletin. For those who are unable to make it, we will share the slides in this Friday’s bulletin to keep everyone informed.

Moving on, over the last week I have enjoyed spending time listening to a number of teams, including our Estates and Children’s Services Teams, about what it’s like working here – including what’s going well and what people are proud of and what continues to get in the way and in some cases continue to cause frustration.

There are some clear themes from the conversations I have which indicate where we still need to focus our efforts if we are to continue to change the culture here for the better that I wanted to share with you from these conversations:

• The need for senior colleagues to listen and act on feedback from staff ‘on the ground’ – either to take on board feedback or to explain why something cannot be done – but either way to really listen and hear feedback and close the loop
• Linked to this, really hearing what impacts on staff morale – and continuing to act on this (we have an opportunity with our upcoming iMatter survey to understand this further in addition to the listening we do throughout the year)
• The need to empower local managers to own their issues and decision-making, not to micromanage (which disempowers and suggests a lack of trust which has the opposite effect)
• Understanding the unintended consequences of some decisions (by involving those staff most affected in the first place)
• Improving the interface between Orkney Health and Care and NHS Orkney so that those who work between the Council and NHS have a better experience at work and feel a sense of belonging as well as having clarity re: important issues such as governance, escalation, decision-making (consistent with what we have described in our own 25/26 strategy in response to previous feedback)

Continuing to listen to and respond to your feedback throughout the year is really important, and points to the work we still have to do and where we need to focus our efforts. This will remain a priority in the year ahead, recognising how critical it is to your experience of working here.

Have a great week everyone.

Best wishes

Laura Skaife-Knight

Chief Executive