Introductory Message
Welcome to the first digital report of 2019.
The first month of the year has already flown by. As always, January was a busy month for the organisation and I'm grateful to everyone for their efforts, particularly those of you who worked over the holiday period.
As a senior leadership team one of our priorities for the year ahead is to be more visible, approachable and engaged with staff.
I'm personally committed to getting out across the organisation as much as possible over the year ahead - particularly when it offers the chance to celebrate the work you do. I'll continue to encourage my SLT colleagues to do the same.
NHS Grampian is the biggest employer in an area which covers 3,000 square miles. That scale means that, as a small team, we simply can't get to each area as much as we'd like to. That's why this report includes the first in a series of short videos aimed at increasing familiarity with the senior leadership team and our responsibilities.
None of us claim to be naturals in front of the camera but I hope the video clips help raise awareness of the team and, most of all, that it makes each of us more approachable.
Once again, thank you for reading this report. I hope you find the snapshot it provides of the good work going on in Grampain of interest.
Professor Amanda Croft
Video Series: Getting to know the senior leadership team
Work Underway on £160 Million Healthcare Facilities in Grampian
Our new £163.7 million Baird Family Hospital and ANCHOR Centre at Foresterhill has taken a significant step closer to reality.
Enabling works to prepare for the building of the two new world class facilities is now firmly underway and a ceremonial ‘turf cutting’ ceremony took place on 18th of December.
The team were joined by representatives from across NHS Grampian and the community and, despite the inclement weather, spirits couldn’t be dampened as the team rightly celebrated an important milestone.
The main construction works will begin in the summer but work is underway to demolish the old Foresterhill Health centre, realign the roads in the area and prepare the water provision for the future buildings.
The Project Team have worked hard with Graham Construction to ensure that there will be as little disruption as possible to clinical services. Inevitably however, some services, particularly those close to the development sites, may be affected by noise and dust.
We also launched the B&A Fundraising Campaign aimed at ‘Delivering the Difference’ in the new facilities for the benefit of patients, visitors and staff.
Two very successful launch events have already been held: a public event at Cafe Tempo in the Bon Accord Centre and an evening event hosted at the Chester Hotel.
The fundraising for the Baird and ANCHOR developments will be led by our fundraising partners The ARCHIE Foundation and Friends of the Neonatal Unit, Friends of ANCHOR and the University of Aberdeen Development Trust for Cancer and Women’s Health research.
These are the two biggest capital works in Scotland currently and we are immensely privelleged to be delivering these amazing project in Grampian.
Boost for Aberdeenshire Maternity Services
The new Inverurie Community Midwife Unit opened for business on Monday 28th January.
It offers one of our fastest growing populations a host of new facilities including two labour and birth rooms, birth pools, single en-suite rooms, a Day Assessment Unit, scanning facilities and a consultant clinic room.
The 24/7 Unit forms part of the Inverurie Health and Social Care Hub and adds to the GP, community and public health nursing, physiotherapy, podiatry, radiology, speech and language as well as dental services already on offer.
New Year Honour for Thérèse
Good News for Dr Gray's
We continue to work hard to deliver a sustainable Women & Children's service in Elgin.
The team were able to announce recently that staffing improvements and efforts to diversify the workforce through the planned increase in the use of Advanced Nurse Practitioners, prescribing pharmacists and a revamped trainee doctor scheme, mean we are now optimistic about the potential of returning further services by August.
There will undoubtedly be both ups and downs before we get there but the progress is rightly being welcomed. There is still a lot of hard work to do but the team are working with staff across the hospital as well as the pubic to make it happen.
Public recognition for staff at Dr Gray's
Understandably, much of the media attention at Dr Gray's has focused on the impact of these changes but I was delighted to see efforts to highlight the raft of really positive other work going on in Moray pay off.
Both the Press and Journal and STV have highlighted positive work being done at Gray's over the last fortnight. It is fitting recognition of the difference our staff continue to make for thousands of patients in Moray every week.
Xmas Boogie at Cornhill
Staff at Cornhill successfully brought a highly rated community initiative to Older Services patients at Royal Cornhill Hospital in December.
The ‘Boogie In The Bar’ event, which aims to get older people out, dancing and socialising has been gone down a storm since its inception in 2017 and the team at Cornhill decided to host an event for patients, visitors and staff at Lochead.
In addition to disco lighting and music, the team served up 0% alcohol and soft drinks at the improvised “mocktail bar". The event was really well received by patients and visitors. Well done to Frances Ritchie, Yvonne Swainson and Adeyinka Adewumi for their efforts.
All Change on NHS Grampian Board
I’d like to formally congratulate Dr Lynda Lynch on her new role after she took up her position as Chair of NHS Grampian at the start of January.
We are also pleased to welcome Joyce Duncan, Sandy Riddell, Dennis Robertson and John Tomlinson who have taken up posts as non-executive directors of our board.
These appointments are made by the Cabinet Secretary for Health & Sport following a public recruitment process. The appointments are for four years.
Advanced Practice Goes From Strength to Strength
The Advanced Care Academy has developed a special fast track academic and clinical programme for Advance Nurse Practitioner trainees from Grampian.
It allows participants to achieve the requirements in just one year – half the time it would usually take.
The first programme kicked off late last year with academic induction at Robert Gordon University.
Designed with RGU to meet all Scottish national criteria and focusing on clinical practicing and theoretical competency, graduates of the course will be able to meet a wide range of healthcare needs with significantly increased and autonomous patient management responsibility.
The Advanced Care Academy was also recently recognised by the ACAP Scotland for their ongoing work supporting An Caorann GP Practice.
Keeping Us Healthy
Congratulations to NHS Grampian Corporate Sector for achieving the Healthy Working Lives (HWL) Silver Award in December 2018. It follows hot on the heels of the Acute Sector and is another demonstration of how seriously we take staff health and wellbeing.
Corporate Services were commended by the assessment team and delivered a number of successful interventions including the distribution of thermometers for offices where employees felt the temperature control was inefficient; the promotion of walking medal routes; a cycle to work scheme and installing bike racks and a bike maintenance workshop.
The team are keen to continue the positive momentum and already aiming for the Healthy Working Lives Gold Award.
Pictured are Grace Adeshina (left) and Dianne Drysdale (right) receiving the award in December.
Staff Campaign Goes Viral
An NHS Grampian staff social media campaign went viral towards the end of the year.
Racking up an astonishing 250,000 views on Facebook alone, our very own "Elf on the Shelf" ran for three weeks in December.
Communications Assistant Lydia Henderson came up with the idea of sending the elf on his travels throughout Grampian to spread a little festive cheer to staff working over the holidays.
The scheme took on a life of its own with over 100 photos of staff and the elf shared from Stonehaven to Elgin - and everywhere in between.
This was all a bit of fun but it also serves to highlight how effective social media can be in communicating with our public and patients. It's something we should continue to embrace. NHS Grampian's social media content is already the most followed and viewed of any board in the country with numbers now regularly outstripping the readership of more traditional media. Food for thought if you have a health message you want to get across.
A decade of making the difference
Fraserburgh Stroke Rehabilitation Unit marked its 10th anniversary with a special celebration for past and present patients, staff and visitors at the end of January.
The 7 day stroke rehabilitation service has gained a reputation for delivering excellent person centred stroke rehabilitation and has been visited by teams from other stroke services across Scotland who wish to develop similar services in their own areas.
I know the work the team do is highly regarded by our patients so I'd like to record my thanks to them - here's to the next 10 years.
Feedback
Thank you once again for your interest in this report.
As always, I'm keen to hear feedback on the types of information you would like to see included in future. Feedback, questions or suggestions can be sent to me directly via nhsg.grampianchiefexecutive@nhs.net or grampian@nhs.net