Daniel Elkeles, Chief Executive, Epsom and St. Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, will be in attendance and will provide an update on the Trust’s latest performance and position.
Minutes:
Daniel Elkeles, Chief Executive, Epsom & St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust was in attendance and provided an update on the Trust’s latest performance and financial position.
The Panel was reminded of the context of the Trust’s activities: one District General Hospital on two sites with a catchment of 490,000. The Trust served two health economies with two host clinical commissioning groups and comprised almost 5,000 staff and 600 volunteers. It was the fifth largest renal provider in the country and the very successful South West London Elective Orthopaedic Centre (SWELOC) was based on the Epsom Site.
Looking back at 2016/17, Mr. Elkeles highlighted the reduction in expenditure on agency staff which was currently the lowest in London and, in terms of performance, that the Trust was consistently delivering the four hour A&E target, regularly being number one in London and 7th nationally.
Mr. Elkeles reported that, financially, the Trust ended the year in a better position than planned for. The slightly lower than predicted deficit meant more to spend on patient care.
The Trust was also working hard to address the CQC rating of “Requires Improvement”. The Trust was originally committed to 300 actions, 40 of which were outstanding as of March 2017: Of these still outstanding actions, a number were connected with the Trust’s estate and would be extremely challenging to address. It was anticipated that a re-inspection would take place in Q3 of this financial year. In terms of providing consistently high quality care – accelerated by the CQC findings, a restructure of the leadership team had taken place with an emphasis on clinical leadership (from “Board to Ward”). 10% of consultants were now in leadership roles. The Critical Care Faculty set up in conjunction with St. George’s Hospital had proved a huge success and had resulted in the appointment of two new consultants. Mr .Elkeles also highlighted the Vanguard “Red Bag Initiative” which was the equivalent of the Epsom and Ewell Health Care Alliance in the London Borough of Sutton. The initiative was having a huge impact on the quality of care of those admitted to hospital from care homes in that area.
Mr. Elkeles went on to highlight the previous fifteen years’ of strategic uncertainty that had faced the Trust and indicated that there would be announcement made shortly regarding the future beyond 2020.
In regard to the Trust’s estate, Mr. Elkeles was pleased to confirm that the Trust had been permitted to reinvest the proceeds from the sale of the Sutton site into a 72 week programme of backlog maintenance and improvements at St. Helier. Whilst this was good news, the disruption to patients was acknowledged.
In terms of improving services, it was highlighted that St. Helier was now home to a new Assisted Conception Unit, £500,000 had been set aside to improve cancer diagnosis and a new state-of-the- art contact centre had been installed.
Whilst the Panel welcomed the investment being made in the Trust, members were concerned that the focus appeared to be on St. Helier.