Agenda item

OVERARCHING FRIMLEY HEALTH STRATEGY

Minutes:

Witnesses:

Alex White, Programme Director (New Hospital Programme)

Sam Burrows, Chief Transformation, Delivery & Digital Officer

James Clarke, Chief Strategy Officer

Carol Deans, Director of Communications & Engagement

Ellie Davies, Associate Director of Communications & Engagement

 

Key points raised during the discussion:

 

  1. The Chief Strategy Officer provided a brief overview to the Trust’s overarching organisational strategy. For context it was noted that his previous experience working on organisational strategies had been within three different areas, notably the first being within the John Lewis Partnership within the retail sector, the second being within the Home Office working within central government, and the present being within the NHS and that there is a strong connection with all three areas and that was the focus on the communities and the patients, within John Lewis that relates to the customer base, and also with staff and how things can be improved for people to provide an excellent service. There had been significant engagement with this strategy over the last 18 months, with various groups and over 3,500 sessions with the local community, including feedback from patients, sessions with Foundation Trust members and the public, open board sessions, and internal engagement with all staff. This had been scrutinised throughout by the Board of Non-Executive Directors and their elected Council of Governors.

 

  1. The Chief Strategy Officer outlined the vison was to be “Compassionate, Effective and Modern in all that we do”. Compassionate was about the care provided and how patients and communities were treated. Effective was about driving the right outcomes, operating productively, and use the most effective techniques of healthcare to get better results for patients. Modern was about a variety of different terms such as how the Trust behaved, the facilities, tools, and techniques that would be used.

 

  1. The Chief Strategy Officer outlined that the four strategic objectives to achieve that which included: people were engaged, ensuring all 13,000 staff felt it was a great place to work; the new modern infrastructure offered, for example the new hospital, Heatherwood Hospital and development opportunities at Wexham Park near Slough. In turn, they can deliver excellent quality and a culture where quality and safety were paramount would be a pillar of the strategy.

 

  1. The Chief Strategy Officer explained that the values were about the expectation of how staff would be expected to behave every day and were developed by staff five years ago from the previous strategy. Those values were committed to excellence, and about people who wanted to work in an excellent organisation, working together, and about people who want to face the future. Half of each staff member’s annual review would be based against their behaviour against those values.

 

  1. The Chief Strategy Officer explained those four strands and objectives with the committee and confirmed that the detail is within the organisational strategy. Under the ‘Satisfied Patients’ objective it outlined the importance of putting the patient at the heart of everything that they do. This will be achieved by joining up care and providing compassionate care, timely access to services, bringing care closer to home, being at the front of digital innovation to maximise the benefit of technology, and empowering patients.

 

  1. The Chief Strategy Officer explained that the second strand of the strategic objectives concerning ‘Engaged People’ highlighting their ambition to be the best place to work within the NHS and want all of the 13,500 people who work for the Trust to be really happy. This will be realised by ensuring staff are equipped for the future, ensure staff feel valued, supported and listened to, train leaders with the best leadership training available and capitalise on relationships with the military to support some of the training, using resources well, live their values, provide modern facilities, celebrate success and look at modern benefits to improve the experience.

 

  1. The Chief Strategy Officer explained that the third strand of the strategic objectives were about ‘Modern Infrastructure’ which involved making sure that they were known to be a digital leader and that they had really sustainable facilities across the Trust , utilising the opportunities that have been put to them by the new hospital to be one of the most environmentally sustainable organisations within the NHS. It is also about the investment in Wexham Park Hospital, and in addition Heatherwood Hospital, but also to use the business as usual (BAU) capital to bring Wexham Park Hospital up to date over the next five years. Continuation to invest in the community and in out of hospital facilities and be a digital leader and assess commercial opportunities to reinvest into the patient experience.

 

  1. The Chief Strategy Officer explained that the fourth strand of  the strategic objectives were about ‘Excellent Quality’ which involved a culture where safety and quality paramount, to enable the provision of the right care, in the right place, and at the right time and also by ensuring lessons are learned from quickly following mistakes, making a difference to health inequalities and continuing programmes around improving the quality, such as with the ‘Frimley Excellence’ continuous improvement programme to improve services every day.

 

  1. The Chief Strategy Officer explained further about making their strategy a reality and provided an overall on what had been done to ensure their strategy was transparent and that people can hold them to account. The three metrics for each strategic objective were briefly outlined, so people could see if the Trust was on track to achieve them, for example such as ensuring that by 2030 95 percent of their patients were seen within four hours of walking into an accident and emergency department, and that 92 percent of their patients are seen within 18 weeks of being referred. They want 75 percent of their patients to use the MyFrimleyHealth App, and at present only 45 percent of their patients utilise that.

 

  1. The Chief Strategy Officer outlined that FHFT were still in the final chapter of engagement with people and planned to launch the strategy by the end of March 2025.

 

  1. The Chairman noted his appreciation that the presentation began with an emphasis on compassion as he considered that is can sometimes be overlooked within such a process. The Chairman was impressed with the MyFrimleyHealth App and suggested that biometric access should be introduced to the App for those who cannot recall passwords.

 

  1. A Member congratulated the team on their ability to present the strategy in such a short space of time and asked the Chairman if there was an opportunity to revisit it at a later stage. The Chairman agreed and suggested perhaps holding a separate session to take the committee through the strategy at a later date.

 

  1. The Chairman referred to seamless care, mentioned as part of the ‘Satisfied Patients’ strategic objective. The Chairman said that seamless access for the patient to obtain information was important for timeliness and ensuring information was not lost. The Chief Strategy Officer noted that one of the common strands to patient feedback included not wanting to need to repeat information in relation to outpatient appointments, ensuring availability for car parking or hospital transport, and ensuring patients did not need to wait six months for an appointment.

 

  1. A Member asked what FHFT’s current position was concerning staff satisfaction, and asked where they were now on that, and what had to be done to improve it. The Chief Strategy Officer explained that was at 65 percent, which was average for the NHS. That was based on the amount of people that took the survey, and not every person completes the survey which needed to be improved. The main information that came through included: listen to views, create a two-way channel with line managers, and ensure what worked for staff. There was a large action plan that sat behind the survey, and it was noted that improving patient satisfaction from 65 to 85 percent would not be easy but was achievable over time. All ICB targets that had were stretching, particularly ones around waiting lists, with over 80,000 currently waiting and that would be a big piece of work to reduce that down to 18 weeks.

 

  1. The Member stated that patient waiting lists were presumably one of the biggest causes of frustration for FHFT staff. The Chief Strategy Officer agreed and explained it involved getting the whole infrastructure right to make the journey more seamless to provide better care.

 

  1. The Vice-Chairman commended the team on their presentation and linked to the reference regarding the MyFrimleyHealth App, raised that not all Primary Care Network (PCN) Apps worked well, and a problem was the number of patients that could not get in the PCN and be seen early. The Vice-Chairman also noted the link between deprived areas and the number of appointments over 28 days, which placed further pressure on hospitals. The Vice-Chairman noted that the link between FHFT’s system and other PCN systems was important for communication with patients, and feedback at every stage was critical and adjusting that template. It was important that the JHOSC saw the results of the adjustments made and reasons why, referring also to the importance of getting the public aware of how efficient those Apps were by for example, utilising local radio The Chief Transformation, Delivery & Digital Officer said there was a broad aspiration as a partnership that the NHS App was the digital ‘front door’ and it already had a wide user base. The interoperability between the MyFrimleyHealth App and the primary care system that sits beneath it to ensure that it becomes more useful to the population was a really important part of the ICB’s digital strategy. The Chairman noted that the Surrey County Council Adults and Health Select Committee also has primary care and access to primary care coming as well as the move to Urgent Treatment Centres (UTCs) as items for scrutiny at the upcoming meeting, and it is a common issue across the health platform.

 

  1. A Member referred  to the three receptions being cut down to one at Heatherwood Hospital, and noted that hospitals could feel like an alienating environment to some people and that there is a need to be careful not to destroy the image of the hospital because people are not as clear about where they are going, as a consideration The Chief Strategy Officer agreed, and considered that where technology could be used they would do this to make this easier for people, and that digital check-in screens would not replace the people.

 

  1. In reference to the App, a Member asked if there was any possibility that EPIC could connect with EMIS considering the benefits of bringing secondary care and PCNs together people would be able to see their paperwork more easily. The Chief Transformation, Delivery & Digital Officer confirmed that there was an existing module that could link the two systems together and work was actively being undertaken with the suppliers to ensure it could be deployed locally.

 

RESOLVED:

The Committee NOTED the presentations.

 

Recommendations:

To ensure everything possible was done to communicate with minority groups and digitally excluded people.