Dear colleagues,
This morning our Incident Controller Louise O’Riordan and I held a vidcast about Metro North’s refreshed COVID planning. Our current tiered response plans are available on our staff COVID extranet. When the refreshed plans are completed they will also be added to the site for your reference. The vidcast recording will be available online later today.
We have had a strong focus on COVID vaccination for the past few months, but other activity continues which is a credit to the commitment of staff across the organisation.
TPCH has established a dedicated user group to support the design and construction of a new 1,500 bay multi-storey car park planned for TPCH campus. The user group, which consists of hospital staff from a range of clinical and non-clinical disciplines, will help inform decisions made in relation to certain aspects of the new car parking facility including its physical design and appearance, and operational function. The input of the user group will help ensure it meets the needs of patients, staff and visitors, particularly as more people access health services on the campus in the coming years.
Our hospital foundations do an excellent job supporting a range of programs and activities across our clinical directorates. RBWH Foundation now supports Redcliffe Hospital and STARS as well as RBWH. The Redcliffe Hospital Giving Day will be held next Wednesday 13 October. Even if you won’t be at Redcliffe Hospital on Wednesday, you can support the event by telling your friends and family about the Raise it for Redcliffe Hospital campaign.
Wednesday is also International Hospital Security Officer Appreciation Day. Our protective services team are an integral part of our care teams to keep staff, patients and visitors safe. We have also had great results from the trial of specially trained security ambassadors in our surgical wards. These ambassadors provide support for patients with challenging behaviours and those who might be disoriented after surgery.
Next week is also Mental Health Week. Our Mental Health directorate provides a wide range of care models from community based to acute services. Mental Health Week is an opportunity to recognise the important work the team does and also to think about what you’re doing to support your own mental health. You can use the five moments of emotional hygiene:
- Scan – stop and scan your mind and body to assess your stress levels and reactions
- Talk – talk it out with a colleague, friend or peer responder
- Act – go for a walk, make a cup of tea, pause, or practice mindful meditation
- Reset – press the reset button to bring yourself back to a calm state
- Sleep – top up your emotional energy by creating good sleep habits.
I am continuing to work through the results of our Have your Say staff survey. One comment I’ve received is that the current frequency of staff surveys does not allow time for staff to experience workplace changes. Some of the improvements since the last survey include the establishment of the peer support and staff psychology programs. The ambassadors program has also been implemented since the last survey.
Following feedback about needing more professional development opportunities, we developed a program called Leadership Essentials for Managers. So far 191 staff from a wide range of professions across Metro North have completed the program with another 63 currently underway. We have also established the Metro North EOI portal that staff can access if they are looking for opportunities. These are just a few examples of improvements following the 2019 staff survey.
Regards,
Jackie