Dear Members,
Welcome to my first newsletter of 2024. I hope you all managed to find some restful time over the holiday period.
As you might expect this has been an extremely busy time for the Trust as we manage the increase in demand for our services caused by winter viruses, and our need to manage the ongoing industrial action. Our staff have responded fantastically well to these challenges, and I am grateful to them every day.
However, I am aware that for some of you this has meant the delay or cancellation of an appointment or a procedure. I am very sorry for all these delays. I can assure you that all our teams are working as hard as they possibly can in very difficult circumstances to keep patients safe, and they are very grateful for the support we continue to receive from our members and communities.
It is important that we find ways to reduce the pressure on our services and improve access to care for everyone. We are working with health and local authority partners to develop new ways of working – such as more capacity in primary care expanding our virtual wards where certain patients can be monitored and treated effectively at home, and new urgent care centres in Slough and Aldershot. These will increase the access to treatment for patients and help to focus patient care where it is needed. We will continue sharing news about these initiatives with you through this newsletter.
Like the rest of the NHS, reducing the number of people on our waiting list for planned treatment is a priority, with an emphasis on cancer care and the longest waiters. Thanks to some great work by our teams, we remain on schedule to eliminate all waits over 65 weeks by the end of March and we have halved the number of people on our diagnostic waiting list. Whilst these are important milestones, our ambition is to make further significant improvements in these areas and to sustain those improvements.
You can also help us by continuing to raise awareness of all services that are available across the NHS Frimley area and sharing information about NHS 111 and choosing the right services with your friends and family.
I hope that you enjoy reading this newsletter and I wish you and your friends and family good health and happiness
Bryan Ingleby
Chair
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust
New Frimley Park Hospital: Listening to our local communities
The initial public engagement phase on our new Frimley Park Hospital is now complete.
Over a period of six weeks, we held four public events, one drop-in session and eight pop-up stands throughout our communities. This was alongside our online survey and numerous staff events and meetings. A huge thank you to everyone for engaging with us and sharing your views.
The aims for the engagement period were to:
- Ensure the public are aware and understand why staying on our current site is not a viable option
- Allow the public to contribute to the development and refining of evaluation criteria that will be applied when assessing possible sites for a new hospital
- For the public to tell us which evaluation criteria are most important to them and why
We are committed to engaging and involving our local communities, stakeholders and staff throughout our journey to a new hospital in 2030. More detail on our response to this public engagement phase will be added in the next few weeks. If you have any questions or require further information you can email the team at: fhft.newfphcomms@nhs.net
Heathlands discharge unit opens to help patients spend less time in hospital
A new temporary community discharge unit (CDU) opened at Heathlands in Bracknell this month to help patient discharges from our acute and community sites during the busy winter months. The CDU takes patients from Frimley Park, Wexham Park or any of the community wards who have had a discharge plan and package of care in place but their ongoing care outside of the Trust has been delayed.
The 23-bedded unit will be open until 31 March and is based on the middle floor of the building. Within just two days of the CDU opening, all 23 beds were occupied which helped to free up some capacity at Frimley and Wexham Park and ensure patients get the care they need while waiting for their ongoing placements to be finalised.
Fran Campbell, head of service, community and older people’s medicine, said: “There is huge demand for capacity during the busy winter months. While the CDU is a short-term measure, it will help to create additional bed space and improve flow with a unit dedicated to help patients who are ready to be discharged from hospital.”
Slough CDC: Demolition works on Upton site almost complete
Work continues on our brand new £25 million state-of-the-art NHS diagnostic centre, planned for Slough in 2025. Demolition works on an unused area of the Upton Hospital site are now almost complete, with the Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) then set to be developed on this area as a new standalone facility.
Construction is expected to begin in April 2024, once we receive the outcome of our planning submission, with the CDC scheduled to open early 2025. It is fantastic news for our local communities, as it will mean that people who need more than one diagnostic procedure may have them on the same day. This will help to diagnose conditions and illnesses, including cancer, more quickly.
While the Slough CDC is being developed, the Trust is introducing a mobile MRI scanner at St Mark’s Hospital to help support the availability of diagnostics. This will help reduce long waiting times for an appointment within the community. The MRI scanner will operate five days a week, between January to March 2024 (Mon-Fri, 8am-8pm). After that, it will operate seven days per week (Mon-Sat, 8am-8pm; Sun 10am-4pm) until the CDC opens in January 2025.
Chief of nursing and midwifery
A huge welcome to our new chief of nursing and midwifery, Melanie van Limborgh, who has started in post following the retirement of Lorna Wilkinson at the end of last year.
Melanie is leading Frimley Health’s improvements in safety, patient experience, infection control and facilities services, while providing professional leadership for nursing, midwifery, allied health professional (AHP) practice and healthcare scientists.
She was previously Director of Nursing at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust where she started her extensive nursing career in perioperative care in anaesthetics and theatres.
Speaking after her appointment was announced in September, Melanie, who lives locally, said: “I’m proud to be joining Frimley Health. The Trust is clearly ambitious, and I am looking forward to being part of it – building on the positive experiences my friends and family have received to make a difference to my local community.”
Chief Executive update
Last month we shared the news that our chief executive Neil Dardis will be leaving Frimley Health to take on a role overseas. His last working day has been confirmed as Thursday 29 March. Read more about the original announcement here.
The process for a successor is well underway and experienced NHS executive recruitment experts have been tasked with finding a strong list of candidates. The closing date for applicants is 5 February and final assessment interviews will be on 13 March.
The recruitment process is led by the Trust’s Nominations Committee, chaired by Bryan Ingleby and made up of the senior independent director, the deputy chair and one other non-executive director. As with other executive director appointments, there will be opportunities for a range of staff, governors and partners to be involved in the selection process.
The Nominations Committee is also making arrangements to cover the role on an interim basis between 30 March and the new chief executive starting. Interim arrangements are expected to be announced very soon.
100 learn more about Trust research
A huge thank everyone joined us online on 23 January for our latest Health Event. More than 100 people were at the meeting which focused on the importance of research and innovation at Frimley Health and included presentations from associate director of research Matt Gardiner and head of research Swapna Thomas.
The free online event also looked at the vital role played by patients and members of the public across Frimley Health to shape the future of healthcare. Some 2,000 patients are recruited into studies each year, improving treatments and helping to save lives.
Recent work at the Trust includes the Avert Dose trial, researching ways to provide a better recovery for stroke patients which has changed physio sessions in the first 24 hours after a stroke. The latest global innovations include a new table for hand surgery which provides a better, more comfortable experience for patients, who can now sit up and have their procedure under a local anaesthetic.
Watch a recording of the meeting
Frimley Leads the way in liver disease trial
Our Trust is at the forefront of a new clinical trial aiming to tackle liver disease. Clinical research practitioner Jess Camp recently screened the first UK patient for the ELMWOOD study being run at Frimley Park by Dr Kuldeep Cheent.
The study will monitor the effects of new drug elafibranor on primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), a chronic liver disease in which the bile ducts inside and outside the organ become inflamed and scarred. Over time, this can cause progressive liver damage, organ failure, and need for liver transplantation.
My FrimleyHealth Record - have you signed up?
My FrimleyHealth Record (MFHR) is an online platform that provides you with personalised and secure access to your Frimley Health medical records. It enables you to manage your care and access Frimley Health services either at home or on the go providing you are a patient at the trust.
MFHR can be accessed on a computer or via an app on a mobile phone and allows you to:
- View details of current appointments and book follow ups.
- Attend online consultations.
- View medications, test results, allergies and letters.
- Safely send messages to your doctor and care teams.
- Allow, with permission, for parents, family members or carers to act on your behalf.
If you have not done so already, sign up today. All the details and guides can be found on our trust website here
Frimley Health Charity's Golden Christmas Appeal raised more than £60,000
Staff and patients were treated to some Christmas cheer thanks to yours and the local community’s generous donations to the Golden Christmas Appeal. The appeal raised an incredible £62,000 and meant we were able to provide every patient waking up on Christmas Day in one of our wards with a special present bundle. With an activity book, hug in a mug, a cracker and message on a star from a local school child, we know how much the patients appreciated and enjoyed their gifts.
For our hardworking staff we were able to provide festive hampers for colleagues to share together and free hot meals on Christmas Day and Boxing Day for anyone working. We truly can’t thank you enough for your support this year – thank you for truly making this Christmas golden.
Magical garden provides respite for parents and children at Wexham
A Frimley Health Charity funded children’s garden and parent room were unveiled at Wexham Park Hospital just in time for Christmas. The new clinic garden and parent’s room were funded by the charity’s Race Wexham event which took part in August last year. With a new accessible garden area for children and a new, welcoming parents’ room the areas have been totally transformed to provide a calming space away from the ward.
Donations raised by Race Wexham are being used to fund several other exciting projects including a revamped staff courtyard, an overhaul of the artwork and signage in ward 24 and a range of refurbished education-themed clinic rooms.