Dear colleagues,

We have just over a week left for the Have Your Say staff survey. So far 28% of staff (6403) have completed the survey. If you haven’t done the survey yet, I strongly encourage you to take a few minutes to give us your feedback and also consider sending a ‘message in a bottle’ to me, Shaun or your directorate executive director. Last time we received nearly 4000 individual messages which Shaun and I have both read. Thank you everyone who has taken the time so far to complete the survey.

We are continuing to experience high demand for our services. We’re looking at strategies to help address capacity pressure. I appreciate what you’re all doing to support patients and provide high quality healthcare.

As you will have seen in Shaun and Sherry’s message yesterday, it’s National Reconciliation Week. We also commemorated Sorry Day on Wednesday. As a large public health service we have the opportunity to make a real difference in addressing health inequality and improve outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our community. We also have the opportunity to learn about and acknowledge the rich cultures and history of the peoples whose lands we work and live on.

As always when a hotspot is declared team such as Public Health, Metro North EOC and local EOCs, fever clinics and vaccination clinics see a rapid increase in service demand. A big thank you to all.

We have now delivered more than 51,328 COVID-19 vaccinations across Metro North. Well done to the vaccination teams and to all staff who have received a vaccination to date.

Shaun is on leave next week so I’ll be acting CE, and then I’m taking a couple of weeks off in June when he’s back.

Warm regards,