Staff briefing roundup

Welcome – Rob Gerlis

Attended the Audit Committee meeting today
The Finance team were singled out and praised for their hard work, particularly whilst working remotely
The One Health and Care Partnership Board met yesterday. District councils had lots of good ideas about A&E admissions
Mental health was discussed in depth at a recent GP meeting
The next CCG board meeting takes place on Thursday 25 March

There has been a big step up in vaccinations
West Essex has got a little bit behind, but we expect this to even out in time to meet the April deadline for the over 50s
Current controversy over European veto of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine does not appear to have affected attendance. The ICS Communications team is working on a response to this

The COVID infection does carry a risk of blood clots, so not having the vaccine puts people at greater risk

Latest position is 67 per cent of people have now had their first dose
Early cohorts now beginning to get second vaccine
Overall expectation is the mid-April target of all those in cohorts 1 to 9 having their first dose by mid-April will be achieved

COVID numbers have dramatically gone down
A lot of focus is currently on ambulance handover delays
Attendance numbers were around 200 to the Emergency Department (ED) but on Monday this shot up to 335
PAH has shared their urgent recovery plan and a meeting has taken place to discuss this
COVID has disrupted normal routines but staffing has improved significantly, apart from a continued issue in ED

The breakdown of the results are now live on AskHUE for everyone to view
Overall, the results were very positive
81 per cent of staff members responded to the survey
62 per cent of staff said they are not thinking about leaving the CCG
Many of the results were better than the national average with work still needed in certain areas
The Staff Partnership Group (SPG) will now develop an action plan to address the less positive points and areas needing improvement
All staff are actively encouraged to take part in the SPG if possible or send a representative from their department who can cascade the information to others

We now need to debrief and to go through it in detail
Overall, it does seem to be an improvement, particularly with such a high level of response
Despite this being a very fluid time, it is reassuring a high percentage of staff want to stay
The format of virtual meetings, like this one, does seem to be working well. Staff seem to be more confident in speaking up and putting comments in the chat during these types of meetings

A big thank you to the SPG for all the work they have done to introduce new ideas and initiatives for staff, such as mid-week mindfulness and mental health first aiders