Chief Executive Monthly Update to NHS Orkney Staff - 3 May 2023

My reflections after month one – and above all else, a very big thank you

Dear Team Orkney

Today marks four weeks since I joined NHS Orkney as your CEO. Thank you for the warm welcome I have received and for all of the feedback you have shared with me to date about what it’s like to work here. I am grateful for your openness and honesty and I know lines of communication between us all are very much open.

It’s already really clear to me that we have so many amazing people working here and that our overriding collective focus is on doing the best for our patients and the local community we serve.

We are doing lots of great things which we need to celebrate better. There are many good things we do that make a difference to the care and experience of our patients that we need to continue to do, and in many cases do more of.

It’s equally clear to me from the early conversations I’ve had that there are sources of frustration for you, that as an Executive Team we need to help to address so that it makes it easier for you to do your jobs and navigate the health and care system we are part of. I will share a full report with you all after my first three months summarising the key themes I’ve heard, and most importantly, what we will be doing to take this forward and act on your feedback.

I wanted however, in the spirit of openness, to share with you some of the consistent messages I am hearing so that you know I’m not going to wait months to get on with the things that matter to you and to reassure you that conversations have already started about making some changes where these are necessary. And when I reflect on these themes, which I have summarised below, this is mostly about getting the basics right, more often than reinventing the wheel.

1. Listening to and acting on feedback from you – you have shared with me that you’d like forums which you can access to share feedback, to feel heard and to share ideas for improvement. Most importantly, you would like to know what is happening in response to your feedback so the loop gets closed more often

ACTION TAKEN:

• I will hold listening sessions – Ask Laura (open to all staff) twice a month, every month
• On a regular basis we will communicate ‘you said, we did’ updates with you
• We have commenced our monthly Board visits which will see Board members visiting different services/areas each month, providing further opportunity for conversations, celebrating your success stories and sharing your feedback

2. Communication - you have told me that our communication has improved but needs to be so much better from Board to wards and community teams and back up again and there’s still work to do to ensure you hear important updates from us first and not via the media

ACTION TAKEN:

• We will work on a plan to further strengthen our internal communications so it’s more helpful and real-time.  We have work to do to address the challenges we currently face with our BLOG and the wait for a new intranet via Microsoft 365.  Even as we do this, we need to remember that communication is a two-way process and we need to make sure we are all keeping ourselves up-to-date with the communications which are regularly shared with us such as the weekly staff bulletins, which contain much of the information we need that impacts on us at work.  I ask line managers to ensure that information sent to staff via Corporate Communications is regularly revisited within team meetings/briefings and that line managers have regular meetings with their teams and direct reports so that we have good communications at all levels of the organisation (Communications is not just the job of the Communications Team – it’s all of our jobs, but is especially important if you are a line manager as a core responsibility)
• I am starting a monthly staff briefing in May (open to everyone) and Executive Directors will join me at these sessions, where we’ll update you on headline updates and provide a safe space and forum for you to ask us questions and share your feedback. After these sessions, we will share a summary of the discussion points with you
• I’ll continue to issue bi-weekly CEO blogs to share my feedback with you and welcome this becoming a two-way conversation, including you sharing feedback with me

3. We overcomplicate things when often we don’t need to – to such a degree decision-making takes too long and it becomes impossible to move things forward

ACTION TAKEN:

• We are reviewing Executive Management Team and Senior Management Team meetings – so that we are clear what each is for and where key decisions are made. We will update you in more detail in the weeks to come and involve colleagues in these conversations as appropriate

4. You often don’t know where to go to get help, support or know who’s who at senior management level

ACTION TAKEN:

• We are agreeing portfolios across the Executive Management Team (EMT) and will communicate any changes to these and share clear details of who EMT are and how to contact us in the coming months
• We will make sure we share how to contact and who’s who in our main corporate support service teams to make it easier for you to get help when needed
• We will share with you how decision-making works here – so that this is clearer to everyone

I continue to listen and reflect on the feedback I am hearing from staff and also our partners and external stakeholders so that I can get a rounded picture of what it’s like to work here and work with us. I will share more details in the months to come and our next steps.

As I stated in my first communications about my 100-day plan, I have five immediate priorities and I continue to assess what further needs to happen in each of these important areas to ensure they have the required energy, resource and focus in the year ahead. As a reminder – these five areas are:

1. Stable, compassionate and visible leadership
2. Organisational culture
3. Workforce
4. Financial sustainability
5. Developing a longer-term Corporate Plan that aligns to our Clinical Strategy

Last week the Board reviewed our 2023/24 Plan on a Page which sets out our priorities and main areas of focus in the year ahead. This was approved by the Senior Management Team and sets out how we will progress in the five priority areas above. More to follow on this in the next few weeks. We will share how we’re doing against these priorities on a quarterly basis both internally and externally and will use these priority areas, which build on those in recent years, to inform personal objectives for the year ahead across NHS Orkney.

As I have said in my staff engagement drop-in sessions, thank you for your honest feedback in recent weeks. Please know I’m listening. Your passion for improving patient care and our services is palpable, and I believe that with our collective energy, with a rest and with a focus on the things that matter most (as set out in our 2023/24 Plan on a Page), that NHS Orkney will only go from strength to strength.

Thank you, Team Orkney

Laura Skaife-Knight

Chief Executive