Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) cares for more than 1 million people a year across three sites: Queen's Medical Centre (QMC), Nottingham City Hospital and Ropewalk House. The trust employs 19,000 staff, making it the largest employer in Nottinghamshire. As a provider of district general services and various nationally significant specialist services, the trust plays a pivotal role across the East Midlands and beyond.
Saffron and I arrived at QMC by tram, (QMC has its own tram stop). We met with Chair Nick Carver and Chief Executive Anthony May to learn more about the trust and discuss the key challenges it faces.
It was encouraging to hear about the trusts' plans for a new Women and Children's Hospital and commitment to the maternity and neonatal redesign programme even as they work intensively to respond to Donna Ockendon's Independent Review of maternity services.
I was struck by the huge amount of work Anthony and the team have done on culture within the trust. They prioritise a values-led approach with co-created values of Kind, Inclusive, Ambitious, One Team, and with their highly visible 'Everyone is welcome here' campaign. This emphasises the diverse range of staff across the trust and how it makes them 'stronger and better'.
The trust's People First strategy aims to deliver outstanding health outcomes and staff experience by focusing on five priorities: quality patient care, patient flow, retention and recruitment, culture and leadership and financial sustainability.
We saw this in action as we walked the urgent and emergency care pathway. The Same Day Emergency Care has successfully helped the Emergency Department reduce ambulatory patient admissions. The trust has seen some improvement in the number of patients with no reason to reside but expect a challenging winter. I was struck by the quality of teamwork and leadership in evidence in a highly pressurised environment; real progress is being made on urgent and emergency care. We also visited Major Trauma, a vital part of the trust's role. We learned about the focus on outcomes and multidisciplinary team working, challenges presented by knife crime and the exciting prospect of the trust's new National Rehabilitation Centre in Loughborough.
It was great to see the new neonatal unit taking shape ready for a December opening, and to hear how the trust were running on time and to budget. We discussed how the trust responds to maternity challenges and the positive work it does to improve services. These include the day assessment unit, triage and a new electronic maternity healthcare record system. We also toured the new foetal medicine unit.
Sustainability and achieving carbon net zero is a key trust focus and we saw how this is done through window replacement, heat pumps via ground and air source, pipe work insulation, better building management and sustainable travel policies. It's great to see serious efforts underway to reduce the trust’s carbon footprint.
This was a full and satisfying visit. I left with a palpable sense of a trust and leadership team on an improvement journey based on culture, values, openness and championing diversity and inclusion. It demonstrates how even the most seemingly intractable difficulties can be addressed with an honest, open and engaging approach. The staff we met were committed and dedicated to delivering for patients, and we left impressed and optimistic about the future for NUH.
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