Interim Chief Executive's Foreword
Interim Chief Executive's Foreword
Welcome to the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust (SEHSCT)
Annual Quality Report 2019/2020. As Interim Chief Executive I am
delighted to showcase our staff's achievements, leadership and
commitment, particularly given the unprecedented challenges we have
faced this year, not only within the Trust but at a regional and global level.
The demand on Health and Social Care Services continues to increase
further complicated by the global pandemic. COVID-19 has been, and
continues to be, the biggest challenge we have ever faced in Health and
Social Care.
I want to pay tribute to each and every member of the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust
for their courage and unwavering passion providing professional and compassionate care to every
patient under such difficult circumstances.
Staff and services in SEHSCT have risen to this challenge in such an incredible way, changing
at pace and with selfless flexibility to adapt to the crisis. As an organisation, we have been able
to capture and understand key learning from the first phase of COVID-19 through the COVID-19
Learning Framework captured within this report. Recommendations from the Learning Framework
are informing how we continue to rebuild and provide services throughout subsequent phases.
I have no doubt it will help us deliver better care for our patients and clients.
This Annual Quality Report enables us to reflect on the past year's many successes and our
commitment to learn and improve where we did not achieve the standards to which we aspired.
Whilst the report is only a synopsis of the extensive work delivered across a wide range of
services, I hope it demonstrates our commitment to:
• Patient Client Experience - listening to feedback, gathering information about their
experience of care and using these comments to shape and inform service changes
• Collective Leadership - valuing both formal and informal leadership and celebrating our
staff as leaders, regardless of hierarchy, experience, location or discipline
• Continuous improvement - focusing on making measurable improvement in the aspects of
quality of care that our patients, carers and the wider community see as really important.
Over the year 2019/2020 the Trust, despite industrial action and the increased pressures on our
staff, continued to deliver safe, high quality care with improved experience and outcomes for our
patients and clients. In addition, we have taken the opportunity to transform how we deliver our
services in many areas such as:
• Dementia Care - through the introduction of Trust Service Improvement Leads to drive
transformation and change and Dementia Companions within our three acute hospitals
• Speech and language Therapy (SLT) - ENT Voice Service has developed an SLT-Led One
Stop Clinic, to enable improvement from day one, a first for Northern Ireland
• District Nursing - Neighbourhood District Nursing Model being prototyped as an integral
part of the enhanced Multi-disciplinary Team in Primary Care
• Looked After Children - Ensuring permanence plans and the development of Post-Adoption
Support Services.
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