Adj Prof Jackie Hanson, Chief Executive

Thanks to Jane Hancock and Tami Photinos for their leadership over the past five weeks while I have been on leave.

As Jane mentioned recently, the Have Your Say staff survey results have come back. There is a lot of activity occurring across Metro North to share the findings including 10 executive team briefings across directorates with the survey provider so far. There are still a couple of directorates to have these briefings and then the full suite of reports will be disseminated throughout September. The aim is for all of the full reports to go to directorates at the same time so they can be distributed to managers and their teams.

We have a three-tiered response to the surveys – Metro North wide areas for improvement, at the facility/directorate level, and at the teams/unit level. Managers will have access to a suite of support and toolkits to assist with interpreting the results and turning them into meaningful actions.

Since I returned from leave yesterday, I have been working my way through the many thousands of messages in a bottle submitted as part of the survey. I appreciate the time people have taken to send a message, but I do want to reinforce to all staff that this survey is not intended to be used as a way to investigate or performance manage individuals. It aims to assess and work with teams and units to improve culture, satisfaction and safety in the workplace, equity and consistency in delegate decision making, and communication within teams and across directorates.

I would ask those of you who are managers or directors across Metro North to reflect on your results and feedback from your teams over time and determine whether you believe the things listed above are positive influences in the work environment that you lead and support.

If not speak up, seek some advice, listen to your team, and make some improvement commitments. From next week I will share with you each Friday a message from the bottle and what action is being undertaken as a result.

When thinking about culture and the wellbeing of our staff, one of the most fundamental of actions that a manager can take is providing feedback, development and support to individuals regarding performance. To this end the PDP discussions with staff can be the most valuable and rewarding conversation. One way to ensure these conversations can occur is to schedule a few blitz months a year where this is your focus.

Listening posts

We are continuing to hold listening posts across Metro North. Next week Jane Hancock and I will be at STARS at 9am on Monday and at Caboolture on Wednesday. Please come for a chat if you can. We really appreciate your feedback and the opportunity to hear from you directly.

Satellite Hospitals

One of the things I missed while I was on leave was the opening of Caboolture Satellite Hospital. the facility has been operating for a few weeks now and by all reports it is going great. Thanks to the CKW leadership team and in particular the operational commissioning team for their outstanding efforts, Michele Smith, Katie Dixon, David Walker, Brooke Cowie, Louise Fichera and team.

The next site to go live is Kallangur, expected to be operational before the end of this year.

Truth and Treaty

This week I received the latest update from the Queensland Interim Truth and Treaty Body (ITTB). With the Voice to Parliament referendum coming up later this year and the Path to Treaty underway in Queensland, it’s important to be informed of what’s happening in this area whatever your personal position may be. You can sign up to the ITTB bulletin on the website which also has a wealth of information about what’s happening, opportunities to participate in community activities, and general information about the journey to a treaty.

Kind regards,

Jackie.