Adj Assoc Prof Jackie Hanson, Chief Executive, Metro North Health

As you all continue to respond to waves and surges of COVID, the recognition and acknowledgement that you are all health heroes is not lost on Metro North Executive and the Board. At the end of last year we made a video to thank staff for what we had achieved so far in the pandemic response. If you get a moment, please watch the video.

For the next 4 weeks Metro North is suspending Category 2 and 3 planned care including Medical Imaging, and all training and education that is not linked to at the elbow clinical support, including non-clinical mandatory training is to be suspended. STARS will continue to deliver planned care at the moment. Metro North continues to access private beds across our catchment.

Chief People and Culture Officer

Following the recent Business Case for Change, the People and Culture directorate has been created, bringing our HR, Organisational Development and staff wellbeing teams together.

I am very pleased to let you know the recruitment of our new Metro North Chief People and Culture Officer has been finalised. Kristal Lowe will commence on Monday 1 August.

Kristal has diverse Human Resource experience across a number of complex values based organisations, most recently as the Director of HR Transformation at Education Queensland. She has qualifications in psychology and human resource management.

New financial year

We are now in the first month of the new financial year. Each Metro North hospital with an emergency department has been allocated recurrent growth funding, calculated roughly on increased activity to recruit to support emergency flow.

The 2022/23 Metro North budget also has some provisions which will support health equity.

We are still waiting to hear the outcome from the department on our health reform submissions and commit to updating you as soon as I hear.

We are continuing to work through your #innov8 submissions. All have been reviewed and those that were suitable for existing funding channels such as Connecting Care with Community have been progressed. The remaining submissions are being worked through by our Health Excellence and Innovation team and the clinical streams.

Donate Life Week

Sunday is the start of Donate Life Week. Metro North facilities play a major role in organ and tissue transplantation. In addition to our expertise in heart and lung transplantation, bone marrow transplantation, and burns treatment, we also have staff in our facilities who support families through their donation decision.

If you would like to find out about organ and tissue donation in Australia or register to become a donor, visit the Donate Life website.

Acting CE

This year has significant family milestones for me, so I’m taking a very short break from Monday. Our Chief Operating Officer Jane Hancock will be acting Metro North Chief Executive while I’m away. Tami Photinos will be acting COO for the period.

Warm regards,

Jackie