Suzanne Rankin
Chief Executive

Back in July, James Thomas used the weekly message to talk about the Making Every Day Count Programme. James described the sustained pressure our urgent care services are under; how winter pressure is usually abated by May, yet this year continued into the summer months. As we are about to enter a new winter period, it’s clear we need to make some bold changes to improve the situation for patients and the team.

By 2022 we will have a fantastic new Urgent and Emergency Care Facility (exact name TBC) comprising an Integrated Assessment Unit, A&E, Urgent Treatment Centre and other assessment areas and services - this will greatly help. However the increase in demand will not wait three years and we need to act now; as many of you already know we have been working on those immediate decisions and actions.

Suzanne Rankin
Chief Executive

On Tuesday this week ASPH marked the first ever World Patient Safety Day, led by the World Health Organisation, to recognise and highlight the importance of providing safe healthcare.

Patient safety is a global health priority, and in an ideal world no one should ever be harmed in healthcare, yet every day many people around the world suffer avoidable harm or are put at risk of injury whilst receiving care. In high-income countries, it is estimated that one in every ten patients is harmed while receiving hospital care, with nearly 50% of incidents being preventable-and the World Health Organisation has a host of other stark statistics.

Dr David Fluck
Medical Director

We are all human and all make mistakes at some point. No one comes to work to do a bad job or make a mistake, but in the healthcare sector simple human error can have devastating consequences for patients, their family and staff.

Human factors look at the reasons why mistakes happen and ways in which systems, environments and behaviours can be adjusted to reduce the risk of error.

Dr Rob Galloway, a pioneering ED Consultant, is coming to St Peter’s in October to deliver an invigorating and challenging session on Human Factors: how we behave and think at work. All staff are invited to attend.

Have you ever wondered how you can order a cocktail in any ‘Weatherspoons’ pub across the country and be guaranteed to get the same drink each time? Have you ever thought about how it is that your Chinese take-away order is never wrong? Rob asked these questions and then used the answers to develop some simple safety systems in a busy NHS Emergency Department.

Louise McKenzie
Director of Workforce Transformation

I’m taking over the Weekly Message today and as it is Organ Donation Week I thought it would be a good opportunity to speak about this, as it is something I have personally experienced and strongly support.

Organ Donation Week aims to raise awareness and encourage conversations around personal donation choices. It’s not the easiest thing to talk about, but it’s vital that we do. I have experienced first-hand just how life changing organ donation can be; to give this some context I’d like to share my experience.

When I was in my early 30’s, a long term kidney condition led to me experiencing renal failure, which was extremely debilitating. I struggled with simple everyday tasks as my body wasn’t functioning properly and I was having dialysis in the evening and again through the night, every night. I had just started a new job and felt that it was already dictating so much of my life, I didn’t want it to affect my career too, sometimes I would have to do the dialysis exchange from my office at work - not recommended!