Annual report summary 2013/14

The story of our year

Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust Annual Report Summary 2013/14.Welcome

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our employees are both the face and the heart of this organisation and it is their hard work that adds real valu e to these achievements.

The last 12 months have been another period of change across the whole of the NHS and in our own Trust here in Gateshead. Throughout this time the attention of the board and all our colleagues across the organisation has remained firmly focused on patient care and making their experiences central to everything we do.

The last financial year has seen some real highlights for the Trust, most notably in the results of an unannounced inspection from healthcare regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The results of this important inspection have been very pleasing, with the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QE) receiving praise for all of its services and the CQC not identifying any recommendations for improvement for the hospital. Their judgements on care, treatment and support at the QE, along with their praise for the feedback systems that are in place, should be a source of real pride for local people. During the year we were also delighted to be awarded a Band 6 rating, the highest possible, from the CQC and we maintained this level in the second set of ratings.

Work is now well underway on the exciting new £32m Emergency Care Centre and this innovative new facility will not only provide a state-of-the-art unit right here in Gateshead but will also revolutionise the patient experience during medical emergencies.

In addition, during 2014/15 we will be taking over the management of the local walk-in centres on both the QE site and at Blaydon, providing a more integrated and holistic healthcare service in Gateshead.

The new £12m Pathology Centre is another exciting development for the Trust and is the culmination of our collaboration with colleagues in South Tyneside and Sunderland. This world class facility, which will open shortly, is an important development for

Gateshead and will be key to achieving some of our financial aims in the coming years.

However, health services across the UK are facing times of unprecedented change and challenge. This is no different in Gateshead and in real terms the Trust will be looking to save around £8.4m in the next financial year. We should not underestimate the scale of this challenge which will require significant transformational change to reduce costs and increase our income streams. Our well-established approach to lean working and service redesign gives us an excellent platform to address this challenge.

However at QE Gateshead our employees are both the face and the heart of this organisation and it is their hard work that adds real value to these achievements. In April we held our second Staff Awards evening at which we celebrated the excellent contributions made by our staff. The number and standard of nominations were really encouraging and the tributes paid by patients and colleagues should give us all a great sense of pride.

Julia Hickey, Chairman andIan Renwick, Chief Executive.

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Annual report summary 2013/14

Our key achievements from last year’s story• Ranked first in England by patients for the experience in cancer services.

• 1st place at the Congress of the International Federation of Infection Control.

• Highly commended by Dr Foster for reducing weekend hospital re-admissions.

• Care Quality Commission band 6 hospital (highest grade possible)

• Maternity unit rated in the country’s top 10%

Focus on DementiaPriority 3 from our Quality Account last year looked at Improving the care of patients living with a diagnosis of Dementia and creating a dementia friendly hospital. The condition is a huge challenge facing hospitals and society as a whole right across the country. In Gateshead we’ve taken some major steps to deliver improvements during the past 12 months including:

• An environmental ‘dementia’ audit across 12 wards

• New dementia friendly signage

• Non reflective flooring

• Mute coloured painting

• Large faced clocks

• Better control of lighting

• Coloured toilet seats

• A successful bid for dementia environmental funding for three areas within the Trust

• Staff training and workshops

Committed to the highest quality and safetyThe Care Quality Commission (CQC) confirmed that we were meeting all of the essential standards of quality and safety, and their report did not identify any areas of concern for improvement. The CQC also rated us a band 6 trust, the best rating available, making us one of the safest and high performing hospitals in the country. You can read much more detail about our 2013/14 Quality Account as part of our Annual Report which is available on our website or as a hard copy from the Trust secretary.

Friends and Family TestThe Friends and Family Test offers our patients another easy way of providing direct feedback by asking a very simple question “How likely are you to recommend the service to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?” The test is currently live for people coming into A&E, Inpatients and Maternity and once analysed the results provide a score based on those who would recommend the service, minus those who would not (this is called the net promoter score). During the year the scores were regularly around 75 and for inpatients reached a peak of 83.7 in October. A complete list of the scores can be found in the full Annual Report. As well as the scores we also look at people’s comments and feedback.

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MP for Gateshead Ian Mearns helped us celebrate the 65th Birthday of the NHS with a visit to the AAA (abdominal aortic aneurysm) unit at the QE Hospital. The AAA screening, which is offered to all men during their 65th year, aims to detect and prevent aneurysms. The preventative screening programme being run from Gateshead, covers the North East, Cumbria and parts of Yorkshire and the North West.

In June 2013 the official charity of the hospital was re-launched to help raise awareness. QE Gateshead Charitable Funds is the charity attached to the QE and last year raised more than £300,000 through staff fundraising, donations from bereaved families and kind legacies left to the hospital.

Good news

Last summer maternity staff were celebrating the safe arrival of a new post natal ward for mums and their babies. The unit was awarded more than £300,000 from the Government to upgrade its post natal facilities and has seen some fantastic improvements since then.

Nursing Cadet Ashleigh Carr wins Regional Advanced Apprentice of the Year. Seven Nurse Cadets started in November 2012 as part of the trust’s future workforce strategy.

in August 2013 we became the f irst North East NHS organisation to become an Investors in People Champion.

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Annual report summary 2013/14

The big good news story for the trust last year was unprecedented praise by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) which rated us as one of the safest hospitals in the country. The band 6 rating is the best mark possible and highlighted the hard work of everyone at the Trust to ensure services are safe, caring, responsive to need and well led.

In May 2013 the QE was named as one of the best hospitals in the country across a number of key performance areas. The Top 40 Hospital Awards are run by CHKS and are based on the evaluation of 22 key performance indicators covering safety, clinical effectiveness, health outcomes, efficiency, patient experience and quality of care.

Supporting staff is a top priority for the Trust and in August 2013 we became the first NHS organisation in the North East to become an Investors in People Champion.

Good news

At the end of last year the Critical Care department won three awards at the North of England Critical Care Network Conference. North of England Critical Care Network acts as an advisory body to NHS Trusts in the North of England.

The winners from the QE were: Team of the Year (Critical Care Rehabilitation Team), Educational Achiever (Andrea Burnett) and Service Improvement (Joanne Wilkinson).

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Our plans for the futureStrategic planningIn the summer of 2014 the Trust developed a new five year strategic plan that looks in detail at the priorities and aspirations for the future of healthcare in Gateshead. The plan takes a ‘whole-system’ view of work being developed with all partners throughout the local health economy including other agencies in the third and independent sectors. The plan describes the extent of our ambitions for patients, patient choice, quality and safety as well as the practical ways in which key services will be transformed to deliver better, sustainable care at reduced cost. More details along with a public summary of the plan are available on the ‘Trust reports’ section of our website:www.qegateshead.nhs.uk

Patientcentred,

coordinatedcare

Ensuring long term

sustainability

Provider of choice

Integration and innovation

Expanding scope and portfolio

Five strategic themesThe Trust’s operational plan sets out five strategic themes that will guide our work in the future. The most important of these is that the patient is at the very centre of everything we do. We want our patients to experience the highest quality care and be empowered to influence at all levels.

Continuing our success story next year….Despite all the progress over the last 12 months we are not complacent and recognise that we can always do better. We now aim to continue our quality journey over the next three years by setting a number of key challenges. Our new SafeCare Strategy 2014/17 aims to deliver a programme of work that will reduce harm and avoidable mortality, improve our patients’ experience and make the care that we give to our patients reliable and grounded in the foundations of evidence based care.

We now aim to continue our quality journey over the next three years

Annual report summary 2013/14

World class facilitiescoming to GatesheadNew Emergency Care Centre: Transforming the way we look after you when you need us most.We are investing more than £32m into a state-of-the-art emergency care centre which will mean we can see you quickly when you need us most. The building work is almost complete with the new unit due to open in the winter of 2014.

The centre will transform healthcare in Gateshead combining accident and emergency, walk in centre, medical & surgical assessment and urgent children’s services all under one roof. And if you do need to stay in hospital, there will be a modern centre for short stay patients at the top of the new building – with quick access to the rest of the hospital for people requiring a longer stay or surgery.

It will be a radical new approach to healthcare where everything comes to the patient, instead of the patient having to move around the hospital. This includes single occupancy, en suite rooms for all patients in the short stay wards. These new developments combined will mean more dignity and less waiting around for people coming into the hospital.

The Pathology Centre:world class care, for lifeThe Pathology Centre is our new facility which operates at the cutting edge of pathology services in the UK. The new £12m centre is due to open in the Autumn of 2014 and will be providing services for several Trusts across the region.

The fantastic new building is packed with the latest technology and we have ambitious plans for the future work of the unit.

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a radical new approach to healthcare

Brand Guidelines

Join us and have your sayThere are many ways of getting involved with QE Gateshead, providing feedback or just hearing about all the latest news

Become a memberBy joining us as a member you will receive regular updates, the official newsletter and be invited to events, meetings and presentations about the hospital. You will also:

• Have a say in how the hospital develops its services

• Be able to vote in elections to the Council of Governors

• Be eligible to stand for election to the Council of Governors

• Get access to a number of shopping discount schemes

• Be eligible for discount in the restaurants at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Bensham Hospital

You can register to become a member on our website at

www.qegateshead.nhs.uk/apply

or contact us on 0191 4453713

or by email foundation.enquiries@ghnt.nhs.uk.

Have your sayThanks for taking the time to read our story. We value your involvement and would welcome any comments and feedback about the Trust.

Please email:Debbie Atkinson, Trust Secretary at debbie.atkinson@ghnt.nhs.uk

Or write to us at:Membership Office, FREEPOST NAT14353, Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Sheriff Hill, Gateshead, NE9 6BR.

Join the conversationYou can join the growing conversation about healthcare in Gateshead online by following one of our social media profiles:

Find us on facebook: www.facebook.com/qegateshead

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For all the latest news and information about the Trust visit our website: www.qegateshead.nhs.uk