The meeting was opened with a welcome to Professor Graham Hart who has
joined the Board as a UCL nominated non-executive director. Dean of the UCL Faculty of Population
Health Scientists, his research interests include sexual risk behaviour and the prevention of HIV
and sexually transmitted infections. He has worked with a wide range of populations at risk, both
nationally and internationally, and made major contributions to health policy and promotion.
The Board also welcomed two new graduate trainees to the meeting, they have both joined the Trust as
part of our clinical leadership management programme.
Steve Hitchins
Chair of Whittington Health
I
would like to hear your thoughts
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below or give me a ring on 0780 1106860.
Patient story: complaint review
1
A woman complained to the Trust after problems
trying to re-arrange her mother's outpatient appointment. She experienced long waits and having to
repeat her mother’s details several times.
Assistant director
of cancer and outpatient services Maureen Blunden explained how they investigated and
reviewed the complaint and identified a number of improvements including increasing staff within
the department, reinforcing customer service standards, creating a new call centre equipped
to deal with calls more efficiently and reviewing colleagues' skills.
She said waiting times for callers were now considerably lower and there has been
a reduction in the number of complaints on how long people were waiting to get through to the
department.
Simon announced that we were another step closer to
transforming our maternity and neonatal department. He said the NHS Trust Development Authority (TDA)
has given initial approval for our investment plans to improve the quality and environment with new
neonatal intensive care and high dependency units, a second obstetric theatre and refurbished labour
ward. The proposals will increase capacity from 4,000 to 4,700 babies a year. We are starting work on
a full business case to secure a £10 million investment towards the £20 million project.
The other £10 million is funded through our own capital expenditure money.
He congratulated Simmons House – our Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)
inpatient service for receiving an ‘excellent’ accreditation by The Quality Network for
Inpatient CAMHS (QNIC) run by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. It is one of only 11 services out of
111 to receive the ‘excellent’ accreditation. Our Emergency Department (ED), he reported,
was also continuing to perform well, achieving seeing 95 per cent of patients within the four hour
target. On some days last month, he said, it had been the second best performing department in the
country.
Infection control annual report
3
The annual report 2013/14 for infection prevention
and control was presented to the Board. The key findings were highlighted, including two cases of
MRSA bacteraemia reported against an objective of zero. We have a zero tolerance for MRSA and
have investigated and implemented action plans. We have had no cases of MRSA so far this year. In
2013/14 we diagnosed 21 cases of C.difficile associated diarrhoea against an objective of 10. We
are also slightly over trajectory for this year, which is disappointing and a priority for the Trust.
Recently the team launched a 'think diarrohea' campaign.
The Board were also told about how the infection prevention and control team have spent time in the
hospital and the community meeting teams, offering support and building knowledge on infection
control. In the past year they have also launched a successful hand hygiene campaign within the
hospital and this will be rolled out to the community this year.
The Board heard how we will be engaging people in
the development of our five year clinical strategy. The strategy will support Whittington Health to be
a sustainable and innovative organisation into the future.
Key to this process is listening to staff, stakeholders and the public. We are working with the
King's Fund to develop the strategy. We will hold a series of events in October and November
across the community.
The Board supported this important piece of work with our local community, staff and other
stakeholders. It will give us a clear narrative regarding the vision and strategy for
the organisation.
Our financial performance
5
The Board heard how our position four months into
the financial year continues to show us significantly behind our plan.
We have an in-month position of £989k deficit against a planned deficit of £102k. The
year to date position is a £3.7m deficit against a planned deficit of £1.1m. The
Trust is working on a back to balance plan by the end of the financial year. This will be a major
challenge for the Trust at this stage of the year.
Expenditure continues to be high, especially around agency and medical locum spend. This is being
reviewed. The Trust is working on a plan to bring the position back to breakeven by the end of
the year. This includes both income and cost saving initiatives. We have seen some progress on
savings plans, all of which are assessed to ensure there will be no impact on the safety and
quality of the services we provide to our patients.
The Board also heard how we are looking at further ways of saving money, including asking for staff
ideas and reviewing vacancies.
The Trust's Annual General Meeting (AGM) and
Members Meeting was held following the Board meeting. At the meeting, the chief executive presented an
overview of the past year, including our key achievements. The Annual Report was also made
available.
Medical Director Richard Jennings gave a talk on tuberculosis (TB) and the new North Central London TB
service, which we launched earlier in the year along with a new TB centre based at the hospital.
