THURSDAY, 12 APRIL, 2018

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

First week for new Chair and Chief Executive of
NHS Tayside

NHS Tayside Chairman John Brown and Chief Executive Malcolm Wright led an extraordinary Board meeting today (Thursday, 12 April) at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee. Mr Brown and Mr Wright shared their experiences over their first week in the roles, with transparency being at the forefront of everything they have done so far - and a reassurance to Board members that honesty and openness would be the overriding feature of all Board business.

The new leadership team has met with clinicians, staff side and managers over the last few days and they have found that staff are very committed and engaged, want to lead service redesign and are clearly very good at what they do.

“We are off to a good start here,” said Mr Brown. “I’m confident that we can find a way forward together and that is what I, as Board Chairman, am here to do.”

Following a meeting with clinicians, Mr Brown said he was encouraged by their open and honest feedback and their confidence in the plans being developed by clinical teams themselves to redesign services across Tayside. His meeting with staff side colleagues had also been extremely positive and colleagues were supportive of continuing to work together and progressing the redesign plans for Tayside.

The Chief Executive, Malcolm Wright, assured the Board of his commitment to Tayside, reporting that he had spent the morning on a walkabout at Ninewells meeting frontline staff and that he was very impressed by their professionalism and the quality of care being delivered.

“I was able to see first-hand today some of the advanced professional roles which are leading the way here in Tayside and the level of teamwork on show was striking,” he said.

Mr Wright reported that his meeting with staff side colleagues this week had been very productive and the joint actions agreed would now be taken forward.

The commitment of the new leadership team has been underlined by the invitation to the Employee Director, Judith Golden to join the directors’ leadership team with immediate effect to ensure staff continue to be involved in transformation plans.

“There is lots of evidence of high quality care being delivered in Tayside and there is a real determination to deal with the challenges facing Tayside in an open and transparent way and a willingness to work together as an organisation.”

The Board discussed two agenda items:

• Tayside NHS Board Endowment Fund Update - The Board discussed the 2014 issue which saw trustees of the endowment fund agree that retrospective applications for endowment monies could be considered, and the subsequent transfer of money to fund a number of programmes. Board members agreed to a proposal presented by Mr Brown and Mr Wright to repay the endowment money which had been retrospectively applied to the programmes of work.

“For our staff and our patients, we believe this is the right thing to do,” said Mr Brown. “The decision made by the Board today doesn’t pre-empt the findings of the formal inquiry into Tayside NHS endowment funds by the Office of the Scottish Charity regulator (OSCR). It does mean that we can move forward, start to rebuild confidence and ensure there are no distractions to continuing to do what we do best and that is making sure everyone in Tayside receives high-quality and effective care and treatment.”

• Transformation Plans - The Chief Executive acknowledged the huge amount of work which has already been done across the organisation to move forward with transformation plans and that would continue in order that leaders could produce a credible, achievable and realistic plan that would be delivered over the next two to three years. The plan will have a balanced focus on maintaining quality and safety whilst bringing the organisation back into financial balance.

The Board heard that engaging staff was critical to the success of these plans and was advised that a Clinical Alliance was being created to ensure the continued involvement of staff. Ms Golden joining the directors’ group was also key to this objective and, coupled with Professor Andrew Russell continuing in his role as Deputy Chief Executive with the support of Nurse Director Gillian Costello, this will ensure that the clinical voice is central to decision-making in the organisation.

The Board will meet again on Thursday, 26 April.

CONTACT: NHS TAYSIDE COMMUNICATIONS

01382 424138
communications.tayside@nhs.net