2023 Annual Public Meeting minutes

Welcome

The Trust’s Chairman, Charles Alexander, welcomed around 140 foundation trust members, staff, governors, stakeholders, and members of the public to the Trust’s 2023 Annual Public Meeting. The meeting was being held in person and virtually to enable as many people to attend as possible.

The Chairman gave his thanks to the Council of Governors and the Trust’s non-executive directors for their continued commitment and dedication, noting that a number had recently joined as others stepped down at the end of their terms. The Chairman acknowledged the very challenging time that the NHS was facing nationally, noting the Trust was no exception but was responding creatively and efficiently and remained committed to investing in the future of NHS.

Review of the last year and our future plans

The Chief Executive, Professor Ian Abbs, reflected that it had been another extraordinary and challenging year for everyone in the NHS, at the Trust and across local communities. 

The repeated periods of industrial action were unprecedented and the significant impact of these on patients, staff and services was recognised. The Trust had worked hard to continue to deliver safe care for its patients, whilst respecting the right of staff to take industrial action.       

The Trust had marked two important anniversaries during the year. The first being the 75^th anniversary of the Empire Windrush ship arriving in the UK. Many of those who had arrived on this ship went on to work in the newly formed NHS and a number of events were held across the Trust to celebrate their legacy and provide an opportunity to reflect on the many challenges and discrimination they and their descendants faced. 

The Trust had also celebrated the 75^th anniversary of the NHS. A number of activities were held to celebrate staff and their role in NHS history. The Trust was also proud to mark this occasion with a visit from the Prince and Princess of Wales to St Thomas’ Hospital for an NHS Charities Together event, and the Prime Minister, who visited Evelina London to meet patients and thank staff for their work.

Across the Trust’s 5 hospitals and multiple community locations in south east and north west London, the Trust was incredibly proud of its diverse workforce, which was largely reflective of the communities served. Staff continued to report positive experiences of working for the Trust and there was significant focus on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion with a commitment at Board level to be an anti-racist organisation. Whilst positive experiences were reported and there was pride in working for the Trust, there was not complacency. The Board continued to encourage staff, patients and the public to speak up with confidence about anything that caused them concern.

It had been a challenging year for performance across the Trust with high demand for services and complex operational pressures, including industrial action. The Trust remained focused on restoration and recovery of services following the COVID-19 pandemic with good progress being made, noting that the Emergency Department was among the best performing in the London and top 10 nationally. There was more still to do though, particularly in cancer services which was the focus of a Trust wide plan. Professor Abbs thanked patients and their families for their patience and support during this challenging time, noting that the Trust did not underestimate the distress and anxiety long waits and cancelled appointments caused.

The Trust continued to work collaboratively with its partners in the south east and north west London Integrated Care Systems to deliver equitable access to care and reduce waiting times, looking for innovative ways to increase the number of patients treated. It also continued to pioneer new approaches and had the largest robotic surgery programme in the NHS, allowing more patients to be treated and have better outcomes.

The Trust met its financial commitment to NHS England for 2022/23, ending the year with a surplus of £13.1m.  A new financial regime was in place for 2023/24 with no additional funding for the restoration of care post pandemic. The Trust had developed and implemented a wide-ranging efficiency programme alongside a focus on increasing activity to ensure services continued to be delivered safely and cost effectively.

The Trust remained committed to investing in its facilities and services, including state of the art imaging and diagnostics capacity and the new Children’s Day Treatment Centre which had opened at Evelina London. The Trust had also bid to become the new provider of the principal treatment centre for children with cancer in south London and south east England. A public consultation on these proposals was expected to be launched by NHS England in the near future. The Trust remained grateful to its charity partners for the support received over the year which helped to deliver investment.

A new electronic health record system called Epic, is due to go live on 5 October. This represents the biggest clinical transformation ever undertaken at the Trust and the biggest single investment to improve care for patients and to expediate processes for staff. Epic will empower patients to play a more active part in their care the through the implementation of a new secure patient app called MyChart.

Sustainability was a key priority for the Trust with a number of steps being taken to reduce the Trust’s impact on the environment with a Clean Air Plan jointly published with King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and a Green Travel Plan focused on making sites more accessible for those walking or using mobility aids.

Council of Governors' report

The Lead Governor emphasised the following:

• the passion and quality of the Governors and their focus on the continuing integrity of the Trust, noting their confidence in the robustness of the Trust’s incident and whistleblowing procedures and commitment to ensuring all matters of concern are dealt with fairly and proportionately
• the appointment of new governors and upcoming elections, including the appointment of Katherine Hamer as Deputy Lead Governor. The appointment of 4 new non-executive directors to the Trust’s Board, with thanks to the Nominations Committee
• his own positive experience as an inpatient with the Trust and the maintenance of the level of care despite the industrial action
• the commitment of the Trust Board, staff, members and the Council of Governors to continue to deliver and improve performance and quality of care in challenging times and the importance of the critical friend relationship in delivering this

Presentations

A series of presentations were provided about how the Trust’s hospital and community services continue to improve the care provided to patients. These included:

• an overview of ‘MyChart’ the Trust’s new patient app focused on improving patient care and experience which would be introduced as part of the transition to Epic. This emphasised the partnership approach to care with patients at the centre, noting MyChart would enable direct communication between healthcare teams and patients.
• a presentation on ‘neighbourhood nursing’ explained the Trust’s focus on supporting patients at home with smaller teams better integrated with neighbourhoods. The ethos being to ensure greater continuity of care and collaboration with other services to improve care and the independence of patients
• a new Children’s Day Treatment Centre had opened at Evelina London. This hosted a day surgical unit for children with purpose-built space designed around needs of patients. The centre worked on staggered admission to ensure waiting times were as short as can be and had a new staff model focused on reducing the amount of time nurses spent doing non-nursing tasks, which also had the benefit of providing more roles for those in the local community

Question and answer session

The Trust’s Board of Directors received a number of questions from the meeting attendees which led to discussion on the following topics:

• mask wearing policy
• the security and accessibility of Trust digital systems and applications
• how the success of the new electronic health record system (Epic) would be measured

Close

The Chairman thanked those for attending in the room and online, speakers and presenters for their support and involvement and questions. Written responses would be provided for those questions which there had not been time to address.