It has definitely felt like winter this week with the cold weather, I do hope you have been managing to keep warm. Our message has of course been to stay safe and to work from home where you are able. However, I do want to thank all of our colleagues who don’t have the ability to work from home because they are on wards or out in the community supporting our patients. I am so grateful for your efforts to ensure we are delivering the best possible care. Please do look out for each other and of course any of our patients who may be struggling in these cold temperatures.

This week I want to thank colleagues across the Trust for all you are doing to support our patients and the delivery of safe services as I know we are feeling the pressures of winter, particularly as we work to support our acute trust colleagues and their busy emergency departments. I would like to assure you that we are working hard with our partners to look at how we can improve processes to reduce these pressures where possible.

I can hardly believe this is my first blog post of November and how quickly October has flown by.

The weeks seem to be flying by at the moment and I can hardly believe we are in the last week of October already. That means that our Black History Month celebrations are drawing to a close and as well as encouraging colleagues to attend sessions if you haven’t already, I would also like to thank everyone who has been involved in the organisation and promotion of the events. It has been good to see so much activity and to see people coming together across NELFT to celebrate as well as educate.

It’s been another busy week here at NELFT and one that has been full of awareness days that colleagues have been celebrating and raising awareness of across the Trust. I have found it really informative seeing the Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) campaign led by Christopher Tuckett, our Associate Director of AHPs and the team, to mark National AHP Day that happened on Friday. It has been great to see so many of our AHPs showcased via this campaign and encouraging others to consider one of the many varied roles available to work with us as an AHP.