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Hello all,
In my final newsletter of the year, I’m proud to celebrate all we have achieved in 2025 for our patients and the communities we serve.
This year to improve patient care and experience - our midwifery service successfully became one of the top performing organisations in the country for standards of care, governance and learning. We also launched a dedicated paediatric anaesthesia pre-assessment service to support young patients coming in for elective procedures and introduced ‘About Me’ to better support patients living with dementia. To reduce patient waiting times we opened a new phlebotomy unit and took blood test appoints online for the first time, as well as refurbishing our Boots outpatient pharmacy at East Surrey Hospital.
In terms of improving our services, we also celebrated 10 years of our SASH+ quality management system and shared our experience with visitors from other NHS organisations. We launched the first phase of our new digital referrals to support the discharge process for patients with complex needs, and launched a new Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) to support faster and more accurate patient diagnoses. In 2025 with the help of our Surrey and Sussex Healthcare Charity, we introduced a breast pump loan library for new parents, care bags to support learning disability patients in the Emergency Department, and cold caps and a new quiet room for those undergoing cancer treatment at East Surrey Hospital.
In 2025 with the help of our Surrey and Sussex Healthcare Charity, we introduced a breast pump loan library for new parents, care bags to support learning disability patients in the Emergency Department, and cold caps and a new quiet room for those undergoing cancer treatment at East Surrey Hospital.
This year we continued to work on our sustainable future by planting a 6.5 hectare wood at our East Surrey site and securing national funding for a new solar farm to reduce our electrical use and carbon footprint. In fact, the new farm will offset 13% of the hospital’s total electrical energy consumption - eliminating 327 tonnes of CO₂and saving the Trust an estimated £6.5m over 25 years - which is fantastic news for our site, our patients and our local community.
Working with our partners, we also increased patient access to elective care and reduced waiting times through close working with the new Surrey Surgical Centre. We have also been working with our Trust Provider Collaborative colleagues on improvements to paediatric pathways across the system – laying the foundations for more innovative care that better meets the needs of local children and young people in the years ahead.
2025 has been one of our busiest years to date with more people needing our care, tougher financial challenges, and a higher sustained demand on our urgent care services, but I am incredibly proud at all that has been achieved in the face of that and to have joined such a hardworking and determined team, who are passionate always going that extra mile to deliver safe, compassionate and high quality care that puts the people in our communities first.
As we look towards 2026 – with the opening of Redhill Community Diagnostic Centre and the work due to start on our two new theatres – and how we can build on the successes of the last year to deliver better patient care in the year ahead, I want to say a final thank you to our partners and local community for your continued support.From our volunteers to the patient transport teams we work with, we couldn’t do what we do without you.
Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas and New Year.
Best wishes,
Andrew Hines
Chief Executive