Staff briefing roundup

Here’s a summary of what was covered in this week’s staff briefing…

Welcome – Rob Gerlis

Vaccination update – Carl Bates

• There have been a few increases, prevalence has gone up but deaths have stayed relatively the same across England and are still dropping
• About 32 per cent of those eligible have had their booster across west Essex, but due to a national delay we don’t have exact figures currently
• Figures for the latter cohorts, 12 to 15 and 18 to 29 are still slowly climbing – inching towards the target of 80 per cent, while all other cohorts are static

General update – Peter Wightman

• A reminder the ICS all staff briefing will be held on Tuesday 9 November, a link to join will be circulated towards the end of this week and you should already have a save the date in your diaries. Please email any questions/concerns you would like raised to the Comms team
• I joined the Staff Partnership Group meeting this morning to listen to some of the concerns and questions from colleagues around the ICS transition; many good points were raised so please do let us know if you have any questions
• We want to use the west Essex Staff Partnership Group as a key vehicle in this transition and you will have a champion who can raise any concerns for you. We also have the Joint (ICS wide) Staff Partnership meeting. I will be attending the next one of these and making sure the messages are consistent between the three CCGs
• The change we are involved with is quite substantial – we are bringing three CCGs into one and totally changing how things are done
• It is not about management cost reduction – that is not what we are setting out to do and we are also going to be bringing new functions from NHS England, such as dental care
• The function mapping exercises most colleagues will be involved with are helping us do this work. The deadline for these was last week and we will now use those to look at how we operate going forward
• The CCG will be no more at the end of March and Herts and West Essex ICS will begin. I think we will be adjusting as we go along, but we will still need to have firm arrangements in place. Thefirst one is who is our accountable officer is going to be. We should know this in the next couple of weeks
• For many people it might mean variations on what you are doing now or there might be opportunities you can go for. We can’t be any more precise at the moment, but that will come
• Please do keep checking the ICS transition website
• There are also a series of virtual listening events running from next week. Please do book a place on one of these
• This is part of the work leading up to transition to an Integrated Care Board from April 2022. The idea behind the events is to make sure this is done with staff suggestions and comments in mind
• You can choose from one of six sessions running throughout November and into the start of December

Local update – Ian Tompkins

• Please do book your COVID booster jabs – they are open to everyone aged over 50 and vulnerable people, at least six months (182 days) since your second dose
• A walk-in flu clinic also is being held at Spencer Close today for colleagues
• The NHS Staff Survey closes on Friday 26 November, so if you haven’t completed it already please do so. If you have not received the survey, please email the HR Advisory team
• This Thursday, 4 November is the staff and family virtual quiz which will have a Halloween/Bonfire theme. Get a team together and email the Comms team with your team name. More info is on the AskHUE events calendar

Welcome new starters – Peter Wightman

• Sarah Garner – Jayne Bensusan has joined as CAMHS administrator working on Care and Education Treatment Reviews and began about three weeks ago. She has already made great shakes since she arrive
• Emma Nicol – welcome to Alison Studer who has joined the ICS this week

Primary Care – Anurita Rohilla

• A document came out regarding the winter access which required us to identify the 20 per cent of practices needing extra support
• As Herts and west Essex ICS, we decided not to take that approach but will still put in our application for funding
• We support all practices and identifying those practices in that 20 per cent may have ruined the relationships with the Local Medical Committee and practices and we pride ourselves on
• Rob Gerlis – it is very important we keep that relationship – there are issues, but doing something like that would not be helpful
• It is one to watch and when we move into ICS world we have got to have our primary care GPs on board. If we don’t it will make things difficult

Peter Wightman

• Re Glasgow COP26 climate summit taking place it is important we do our bit. We had a first meeting with the ICS regarding green place
•  One of the suggestions was all of us should be ‘carbon literate’
• It is going to become a massive topic and I think the Government will be leaning very heavily on the NHS and this will be relevant to all of us – we employ such a large workforce
• Anurita Rohilla – Peter mentioned inhalers and how different ones have different carbon emissions. We are doing a piece of work on that and also on wasted medicines and the impact incinerating those has on the environment
• Rob Gerlis – a video of Crocus Medical Practice’s new premises at Saffron Walden Community Hospital made by NHS Property Services is now available to view – this was an excellent example of joined up working and the video is well worth a look. Watch the video