The Royal Surrey has been nominated for a National Health Service Journal award for a new advice and guidance service. It provides rapid advice to GPs on treatments and referrals Whist getting fast access to specialist advice to patients it has to date avoided 1,600 appointments and saved £430,000. Good use of  IT and innovation.

The Royal Surrey has recently formed a company HPL which it 100% owns. It has transferred to this company ownership of all its medical equipment (£ multi-million) including linear accelerators. The company has taken over responsibility for all equipment maintenance and the procurement of any new equipment which it will similarly own. Staff in the hospital who were responsible for these functions have been transferred and are now employees of HPL. The Chief Executive is Alf Turner who was the hospital director responsible for these matters.

Why has this been done? It is expected that the new company will manage maintenance and procurement better and more efficiently with a projected saving of approx. £1.5 million per year albeit is not clear why this could not have been achieved by the same people employed within the hospital. Very significantly there will be a saving this year related to VAT of approx. £2 million. It is a very strange world where a NHS hospital can in essence avoid VAT by such means but other hospitals are doing it !! Whilst I understand HMRC are reviewing these arrangements they are of course legal and will financially benefit the hospital.

Chief Executive leaves

Paula Head the Royal Surrey Chief Executive will be leaving soon to take up a post at Southampton University Hospital Trust. In the short time she was at the Royal Surrey she made a substantial impact in many good ways and it is a pity she has chosen to move elsewhere so soon. I am sure everybody wishes her well.

Results of Care Quality Commission inspection

In January and February the Care Quality Commission (CQC) comprehensively inspected the Royal Surrey as they do with all hospitals. I am delighted to say that the hospital has been rated as ‘Outstanding’ in two areas with an overall rating of Good with not a single area requiring improvement.

The inspection team looked at the quality of four core services: maternity, gynaecology, medical care including oncology, and outpatients and then assessed the impact of these four on the overall domain scores in safe, effective, caring, and responsive. They also looked specifically at leadership and management to answer the question: Is the trust well led?   

They evaluated the Royal Surrey as ‘Outstanding’ in being responsive to people’s needs and in maternity services, and judged as ‘Good’ outpatients, gynaecology and medicine including oncology. So the hospital is ‘Good’ for caring, is effective and safe and well led.

The maternity department was seen to be innovative in providing person-centred care that involved other service providers: staff were energetic and ambitious, responsive to patients’ requests and made adjustments where possible for patients’ with specific individual needs.

Outpatients department was also credited as having strong, clear leadership: well managed and well-led.  The overall environment and dementia-friendly decoration and signage were commended.

Finally inspectors agreed that the Trust is well led with an open and honest culture throughout the organisation. Staff described the Trust as a happy, supportive workplace.

Well done the Royal Surrey.

The Royal Surrey has won the CHKS Quality Care Award.

CHKS is a company that provides data analysis services for most  hospitals so has all the objective evidence to back this award. Great testimony to the hospital's services.

The Royal Surrey has now taken over the contract from Virgin Heath for running Adult Community Health Services in Guildford and Waverley, It is busy embedding the Royal Surrey NHS culture, its performance targets and its focus on risk management. Hopefully as the year progresses improvements will become evident and opportunities will be realised to combine much more effectively acute and community care.  As a governor I will also now have responsibilities extending to this community care and am looking to develop my understanding of this environment.

NHS Improvement complements Royal Surrey on performance.

As you will know the Royal Surrey went through a very bad financial crisis and as a result was under surveillance from NHS Improvement. Through determined management it has turned itself around. The 2017/18 financial year has just ended for which the so-called control total set by NHS I was a deficit of £2.93 million but the likely outturn looks like being over £3 million surplus (a turnaround of £6 million).

Additionally, nationally, all hospitals have struggled to meet national targets such as the 4 hour wait in A&E. However, much to its credit, the Royal Surrey has been the exception and this has been recognised by NHS I. It has asked whether it can investigate how Royal Surrey managed to perform so well in order that others can learn. Well done Royal Surrey.