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Hello all,
I’m very grateful for the warm welcome I’ve received both from our staff at SASH, and from health and care partners across the Surrey and Sussex systems that we serve.
My first month at SASH has been a busy one as expected, spending lots of time meeting our many brilliant teams across the Trust - hearing about the exciting plans we have for the future and the challenges our teams are seeing across all of our clinical divisions. I am excited by some of the new changes on the horizon such as the two new theatres on our East Surrey site and more investment in our workforce, something which will directly benefit our patients in the years to come.
We’re making good progress implementing our improvement plan in response to the report published in late August by the Care Quality Commission. This month we saw construction complete on our new and improved pharmacy at East Surrey Hospital, and we are also very nearly there with our new Community Diagnostic Centre in Redhill. We also regained our five-star food hygiene rating for Three Arches Restaurant and appointed an Interim Chief Finance Officer following Paul Simpson’s retirement. I’m also delighted that Surrey East has been selected to be one of around 40 neighbourhood health pilots nationally. We look forward to working with partners to implement the vision of the 10 Year Plan locally.
Our services
Improving our pharmacy at East Surrey
I am pleased to update that the works to transform the Boots Outpatient Pharmacy at East Surrey are now complete, with patients already experiencing a much-improved environment that is modern, accessible and provides a quicker patient-focused service that will meet both current and future demand. The new screens which have been installed in the store and in the main entrance, along with new seating in the store, have enabled patients to sit comfortably while their medicines are prepared. The introduction of the electronic prescription tracker which enables the use of these screens also gives the inpatient pharmacy team real-time visibility of waiting times which reviewed and discussed with the Boots team. The new consultation room is now enabling confidential conversations with the pharmacist so that advice can be given on a range of minor ailments or to discuss concerns about medicines. We are also getting ready to introduce a new text messaging service to notify some of our patients when their medication is ready for collection, either from the store at Boots or an alternative more convenient location, starting with patients who are on long-term oral anti-cancer treatments.
Our partners
East Surrey Neighbourhood Programme
East Surrey have been successful in joining the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme. Surrey East Place covers Surrey Downs and East Surrey with a population of 513,000. There are 12 neighbourhood teams that are aligned to 11 neighbourhood communities closely matching electoral divisions and emerging Neighbourhood Area Committees. A new Alliance will bring together the previous place-based structures into one. This will maintain responsibility for overseeing the devolved budget for adult community and integrated frailty/hospital discharge services, managed via a formal Provider Partnership in Surrey Downs. The neighbourhood approach supports proactive interventions and community-led initiatives, focusing on both geographical and identity-based inequalities. The programme intends to:
• Build on existing integrated work and accelerate ambitious plans.
• Co-create outcomes nationally and locally.
• Focus on the most deprived neighbourhoods and minoritised communities, with tailored partnership work and targeted programmes (Core20PLUS5).
• Shift power/resources to prevention (Growing Health Together) and neighbourhoods.
• Influence new contractual models and financial flows.
• Share learning.
Redhill CDC update
The construction on our new Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) at the Belfry Shopping Centre in Redhill is due to be completed shortly. We will then work on getting the centre ready for patients – getting staff trained and getting our CQC registration in place – it’s an exciting milestone to finally be counting down to welcoming our first patients at the end of October. The new centre will be key to our plans to increase local access to diagnostic testing and will help tens of thousands of local patients get vital tests and checks sooner. The new CDC is expected to carry out almost 40,000 tests - such as CT scans, X-rays, ECG’s, ultrasounds - in its first year, which could mean around 200,000 fewer patient journeys to East Surrey Hospital over the next five years. Once fully up and running, the CDC is expected to offer patients a 12-hour service, seven days a week. We aren’t doing this alone, and our partnership work with colleagues at Surrey Heartlands ICB and the Belfry Shopping Centre has been key to making this centre a reality over the last few months. The addition of a new CDC to our local healthcare offer builds on the Trust’s existing community diagnostics services at Crawley Hospital, which has delivered over 236,000 tests and checks since launching in April 2023.
Trust news
Three Arches Restaurant receives a five-star rating
This month the Trust’s catering team for all their hard work in regaining the Trust’s five-star food hygiene rating for Three Arches. We have now addressed the areas highlighted by the Environmental Health Officer (EHO) last year and made significant improvements to our food hygiene, safety standards, and kitchen cleanliness. It’s a brilliant achievement and reflects our collective effort to maintain safe and high-quality services for staff, patients, and visitors.
Interim Chief Finance Officer
I am pleased to announce that tomorrow (1 October) David Cooper will be joining SASH as the Interim Chief Finance Officer following Paul Simpson’s retirement earlier this month. David, who is currently the Acting Chief Finance Officer at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, will bring with him over 15 years of experience in healthcare finance, along with knowledge working outside of finance in operational and programme management. As Interim Chief Finance Officer, David will be responsible for the Trust’s financial operations, plans and strategy. He will also be a member of the Trust Board.
Best wishes,
Andrew Hines
Chief Executive