By Anna Whittaker, Local Democracy Reporter
The Chief Executive of Nottingham University Hospitals has set out a major plan to tackle its biggest issues – including the timely discharge of hundreds of patients who are ‘medically safe’ to go home.
A new report by the Trust, ‘People First’ comes after a string of highly-critical assessments of NUH by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
It marks a reflection on Chief Executive Anthony May’s first 100 days at the trust and an outline of how things should improve and progress over the next 1,000 days.
The trust, which runs the Queen’s Medical Centre and City Hospital, employs almost 19,000 staff and has a budget of £1.3bn a year.
Mr May, who joined the trust in September 2022, has set out a focus on patient flow through the hospitals, recruitment and retention and leadership and culture to drive improvement.
The report comes at a crucial time for the NHS, with increasing waiting lists for treatment and high ambulance handover delays.
Next week, some East Midlands Ambulance Service staff are taking part in two-day strike action from February 20 to 21, with plans for the military to be drafted in to assist paramedics.
Mr May said the number of patients who are medically safe for discharge remains high after a “really difficult period” over Christmas and New Year.
Currently, the trust has 168 patients who are medically fit to leave the hospital but cannot be discharged due to a lack of social care provision.
Mr May told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “We’ve still been very busy but I’d like to think we would’ve been even busier if we hadn’t done the things we have.
“The plan isn’t just for winter, it is for the whole year.”
He listed examples including finding extra capacity on the wards, joined up work with the Integrated Care System (ICS) to discharge patients quicker and same day emergency care.
The trust has also launched a ‘Hospital at Home’ programme whereby patients are supported by NUH staff to be discharged back home.
The ‘People First’ report was praised by board members at the January meeting with Dr Neil Pease, Chief People Officer saying the document was an “unbelievable catalyst for change”.
Mr May added: “NUH is in a unique set of circumstances, in that we’ve got intervention for our leadership, maternity and an independent review of maternity services. That puts us in the spotlight.
“It seemed to me that what the organisation lacked was a roadmap for its future as a way out of our difficulties.
“In a nutshell, it’s my attempt to bring together everything I’ve been told into something that will get us into the next era of transformation for the trust.
“There is a lot of pressure, there is no point in lying about that. But pressure for me has always been a motivator.
“What the report has done is give people some hope, now we’ve got to deliver it.”
A major part of the plan is to give clinicians more responsibility in decision making – something which Mr May has been told was not done in the past.
He said: “I’ve spent quite a bit of time in ED and sometimes they feel frustrated that we don’t understand what their world is like. We’ve got to make sure they feel more valued.
“Some clinicians would say they’ve felt isolated from decision making, and this is my way of saying we’re going to put you front and centre.
“That whole thing about whether we’ve got a golden thread from the ward to the board, which the CQC was very critical of, that’s getting better but there’s a lot more we can do.”
But Mr May said recruitment and retention is the most important goal “because NUH is about the people”.
He added: “We need to have sufficient colleagues to make sure we can provide services.
“There are around 19,000 jobs in the trust and at the moment we have about 2,000 vacancies.”
