I was delighted to be given a tour of our new CAMHS Centre of Excellence at the end of June.

Based at the former Links Unit at the City Hospital in Aberdeen, the facility has been given a £1million upgrade and brings together services under one roof.

Until the facility opened, City and Shire CAMHS staff, had been based across three sites and the number of patients they were able to see hampered by a lack of space.

The facility brings all of the service’s resources under one roof, with enough space to offer more than 850 hours of therapy each week.

It will also be closely linked with the Rowan Centre in Elgin which provides a similar service in Moray.

Dedicated areas have been set up to cater for young people of different ages up to the age of 18, with spaces for physio, a therapy kitchen and an intensive support facility.

I was pleased to meet some of our younger patients and their passion and enthusiasm for the new centre was clear for all to see. I’d also like to congratulate the project team for completing the significant overhaul of the old Links Unit in less than 12 months.

Sporting Blue Hair For CAMHS

I’ve been hugely impressed by the efforts of a group of local young people who have been fundraising to purchase extras for the new CAMHS Centre of Excellence.

As #kidsforCAMHS they’ve raised an astonishing £10,000, double their original target. The young people dyed their hair blue to celebrate and myself and Alan Gray, our Finance Director, promised them we would do the same to show our support.

Luckily, it was only a spray on colour and not something longer lasting!

Still, looking silly for an afternoon to say thank you to #kidsforCAMHS was the least we could do after all their amazing effort.

IMatter

The annual iMatter survey had just been launched while I was writing my last report and the process is now complete with all 17,000 of our staff receiving the survey.

Teams across the organisation, including the System Leadership Team, are now developing action plans based on the feedback.

iMatter is a crucial tool in helping us improve as an organisation. Your responses allow us to measure how we are performing and to identify potential issues, drive change and to put in place any necessary additional support and assistance.

Adam Coldwells, Chief Officer for Aberdeenshire Health and Social Care Partnership and Susan Coull, Interim Head of Operational HR, explain more about iMatter in the short video clip below.

Getting to know each other…

I was interviewed by Emma Pettis from Corporate Communications in the Grampian Hospital Radio Studios as part of a new series of podcasts that the System Leadership Team will be taking part in.

It’s less than 10 minutes in length and is designed to help people get know the senior team and is part of a range of efforts we are involved in to be more visible to staff.

In the future other members of the team will be interviewed and there will be an opportunity for staff to submit questions via the intranet.

The podcast will be formally launched on the intranet later this week but I’ve included it below in case you are interested in listening now.

Supporting Advanced Clinical Skills in Grampian

I mentioned in my previous report that the new Advanced Care Academy continues to go from strength to strength.

I’m passionate about supporting the Academy which aims to help the development of staff in Grampian who are looking to develop advanced clinical skills.

Nurse Consultant Karen Kindness has recorded the short video below to explain more about what ACA is and let people know how they can find out more.

Approval of £1 Billion In Funding

In Grampian we received over £1 billion in finance every year and ensuring that it is appropriately managed is no mean feat. Our spending is closely scrutinised, as it should be, by the Scottish Government and independent auditors.

Since last report we've held a special session of the Board at the end of June to approve our annual accounts.

We’ve an excellent track record in Grampian of consistently balancing our budget, year on year. That is a testament to the hard work of teams across the organisation.

At a time of tighter and tighter budgets, balancing the books has played a huge role in enabling us to provide more than £300 million in new or enhanced facilities across Grampian. That includes the new Baird Family Hospital, ANCHOR Centre, Inverurie Health & Social Care Hub and Foresterhill Health Centre, not to mention the host of upgraded areas across our existing sites.

Celebrating Good News is essential

We don’t always like to pat ourselves on the back in the NHS but we have a lot to be proud of here in Grampian. Whether it's because of the dedication, long service or exemplary work, our staff deserve to be recognised. As an organisation, I firmly believe we need to get better at that.

There are areas of good practice across the organisation and we’ve seen a number of new schemes introduced within sectors over the last few months. Celebrating excellence for NMAP staff as well as employee of the month awards in catering and domestic services in particular spring immediately to mind.

The Grampian Area Partnership Forum are currently looking into other ways we can recognise staff, and they have my full support in those endeavours. Once that work progresses, I will make sure that we include an update in this report.

In the meantime, the gallery below highlights some of the examples of staff dedication, long service and awards that have been brought to my attention over the last couple of months.

In addition to those pictured, Susan Stevenson also retired from NHS Grampian after a remarkable 50 years with us at the end of June. She worked in the medical records team – eventually becoming manager before trying to retire a decade ago. I’m told that didn’t last long before we persuaded Susan to come back and help us with the then new PMS system.

Video below: Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital Chef Billy Farr received his Employee of the Month award at the end of the month and the short video clip below which has been viewed more than 12,000 times on our Facebook page.

Building UP A Caring Culture

In my last report I spoke a little about the Sturrock Report at NHS Highland and how important it is for health boards across the country to reflect on the learning it highlighted.

Fostering a caring, positive culture across NHS Grampian is vital - not just because there is a raft of evidence that shows it helps improve outcomes for our patients, but, just as importantly, it’s something we are each entitled to expect at work.

Nick Fluck, Medical Director, and Caroline Hiscox, Acting Director of Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions are leading that work on behalf of NHS Grampian.

The video below is a conversation between Caroline and I that's intended to give a brief update on the work which has been done so far.

Setting The Agenda For The Next Half A Decade In Grampian

The Grampian Clinical Strategy continues to progress. I know for some people the mere mention of the word ‘strategy’ is enough to send them running but it is hugely important for our organisation.

It sets the agenda for everything we do over a 5 year period. It is based on four themes which are Prevention, Self Management, Planned Care and Unscheduled Care.

We recently discussed the strategy development at a board seminar and hope to have a final document to formally consider later in this year.

In my next report, Medical Director Nick Fluck, has agreed to write a short articke explaining how we are developing a strategy that assesses risk while helping to encourage improvement. Getting that right is going to be important in delivering the performance and outcomes we all want to see for our patients.

In the meantime, I wanted to include the slides below from a presentation given at that seminar and hopefully they are of interest.