I appreciate there have been some changes to the leadership team here at NELFT, not least my acting Chief Executive role but also some new executive and non-executive directors. It’s important staff know and can relate to those who are making the big decisions at NELFT. You can find out more about the Board and look out for more from our Meet the Board campaign across our social media accounts.

A key part of being a leader here at NELFT is to understand what it feels like to work here and to receive our services. That is why I try to visit as many services as I can (in a COVID-19 safe way of course). Last week I visited the Acorn Centre in Havering, where I got to meet with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) clinicians, speech and language therapists and other therapy colleagues and the amazing administration team. Thank you to Sue Patterson, Michele De-Souza and the team for facilitating my visit and sharing feedback.

As I mentioned last week, as well as responding to winter pressures and responding to the pandemic, there are lots of other projects and innovations taking place across the Trust. One area we are focused on this year is our approach to digital solutions and innovations. We want to be known as a Trust that delivers outstanding care and takes advantage of modern technologies to enable that. We want to make sure you have access to digital solutions that facilitate the delivery of care and allow you to focus on the human parts of your jobs that you do best. We want to be ready to adopt technological breakthroughs that could improve how we deliver care to all our patients, and allow us to create more flexible, sustainable services.  We want to do this in a way that is intelligent, informed, and innovative. We're developing a new digital strategy for the Trust and over the coming weeks our Informatics team will be seeking feedback to help inform this.

Finally, I wanted to remind our colleagues across health and social care of the importance of looking after your own wellbeing. I know that the last few years have really taken their toll on all of us. It is sometimes easy to forget that those of us working in the NHS have our lives outside of work to juggle and balance. We are all experiencing the impacts of the pandemic and the last few years in both our personal and professional capacities. We feel tired, we are trying to manage the uncertainty the pandemic has caused in our lives as best we can and we want to spend as much quality time as we can with loved ones in person, not always via screens or phones. And on top of all this we are working hard to support our patients, their loved ones and of course our colleagues. I truly appreciate all you are doing and want to thank you for being part of Team NELFT.

Take care and stay safe.

Jacqui