HELLO everyone and welcome to my latest blog.
The big topic this week has undoubtedly been the mass staff COVID testing exercise that we have undertaken.
I would like to say that the response was amazing. Our Incident Control Centre and operational teams reacted superbly and swiftly to get plans in place straight away and our regional colleagues showed great support with the offer of the mobile testing unit and the subsequent arrangements to come to Blackpool. We have also had great support from some of our partners to process some of the swabs.
I would like to make a special mention to our own lab teams who have produced a quite astonishing response to support this massive extra ask.
Finally a huge thank you goes to all staff who got their test done. To get more than 4,000 staff tested in five days was a huge effort and I thank you for your co-operation.
People Pulse results
I WAS really pleased to see that almost 1,000 Trust staff completed the first NHS People Pulse survey in July.
The survey is a national online tool that has been developed for all NHS provider and commissioner organisations, to help us know what is working well and what isn’t.
The results will provide a national, regional and local view of employee experience and wellbeing and the feedback will help inform local and national changes that improve the experiences of our people and patients.
NHS People Pulse will run from 1 July 2020 until 31 January 2021, with a new survey taking place every two weeks to allow us to explore various aspects of response to COVID-19 and the recovery phase. The next survey will be launched next week so please keep telling us how you are feeling and the support you want.
NHS People Plan
THE NHS has launched a new document We are the NHS: People Plan 2020/21 – action for us all, which focuses on how we must all continue to look after each other and foster a culture of inclusion and belonging, as well as take action to grow our workforce, train our people, and work together differently to deliver patient care.
This plan sets out the actions that NHS England and NHS Improvement and Health Education England will take, over the remainder of 2020/21. It includes specific commitments around:
- Looking after our people – with quality health and wellbeing support for everyone
- Belonging in the NHS – with a particular focus on tackling the discrimination that some staff face
- New ways of working and delivering care – making effective use of the full range of our people’s skills and experience
- Growing for the future – how we recruit and keep our people, and welcome back colleagues who want to return
This is a really timely report and well worth a read. It highlights how we must build on the work we have undertaken since the COVID pandemic started in terms of transformation and looking after the welfare of our staff.
The arrival of COVID-19 acted as a springboard, bringing about an incredible scale and pace of transformation, and highlighting the enormous contribution of all our NHS people. The Trust, and the NHS as a whole, must build on this momentum and continue to transform – keeping people at the heart of all we do.
Finally a huge thank you once again to everyone for all your amazing efforts.