Agenda item - Meet the new senior team at Brighton & Sussex University Hospital Trust (BSUH)

Introduction from Marianne Griffiths, Chief Executive of BSUH.

10.1    Marianne Griffiths (CE of BSUH) introduced her colleagues and explained that she wanted to highlight to the committee what they want to achieve, how they will achieve it and what the challenges are.

10.2    The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has put the organisation into special measures – there are issues with quality (staff culture) and finances (a deficit of £65m at end of last year). This team of staff were brought in from West Sussex in April 2017 to undertake the leadership for a minimum of 3 years. BSUH has a link to West Sussex as a lot of patients are sent to specialist units in Brighton from West Sussex.

10.3    There arefive key things they want to achieve:

·         Moving out of Quality Special Measures – The CQC left 63 issues to address, some of which were large problems including leadership, culture and governance. The CQC came back to re-inspect when this leadership team had only been in place for two weeks so it is unlikely this report will allow the exit from special measures. It is hoped that some significant change will have occurred in a year’s time when the CQC return again.

·         Moving out of Financial Special Measures – when the management agreement was signed B&H received a dowry from BSUH. £30m capital reinvestment to redesign A&E, £19m emergency fund for backlog maintenance and £2m for patient first programme.

·         Building an organisational culture that will sustain improvement into the longer term – BSUH came out at the bottom from a staff survey. There is a need to re-win the trust of staff and front line staff are being worked with to try and improve morale and move the organisation forward.

·         Building on A&E improvements – a full business case should be announced on Friday.

·         Progressing the 3Ts programme – This is a complex programme but it is on track.

10.4    The main challenges exist around the workforce being demoralised. This is being dealt with through trying to win back trust of staff and also hiring the right people through an ongoing recruitment campaign. Regulators can also mean that there is little room to carry out improvements however it has been agreed that the regulators will only review once per month.

10.5    In response to questions the following was clarified:

·         It was confirmed that the £65m figure for deficit was a negotiated settlement that allows a £65m deficit to be delivered with headroom for some investment and changes to be made.

·         In relation to the restructure of the estates management department it was confirmed that the change was not managed as it should have been and lessons will be learnt from this. Should have been clear on how the new management structure was designed, the impact of this and support available but this was not done so they would like an opportunity to revisit.

·         Partners are being engaged with including Adam Doyle who has been met with as he is part of the single plan. He agreed that there should be a stretch target of 1% for delayed discharges and having a different contract together to deal with transformation was spoken about. It is felt that there has been a good start to the working relationship and that the right discussions are taking place. A positive start has been made with the commitments made and some improvements can already be seen from the action taken by partners and themselves.

·         Vacancies have been advertised and there is the correct quality of person applying so it is hoped that in the near future there will be some stability in the organisation in terms of employees. The last 18-24 months has been looked at to see which employees have left and they are now being contacted and invited to events in July to encourage them to re-join.