Below are this week’s key messages from the national NHS Estates & Facilities Team. Please email any questions or comments you have on any of these items to [email protected] or follow the links where provided.
Message from Simon Corben
As we all gear up for the Easter break I would like to express my thanks again to all members of the estates and facilities profession for your hard work and dedication. The position around COVID-19 continues to improve as the National Vaccination Programme moves forward at pace.
We have come a long way since the turn of the year when the latest national lockdown was introduced to support the response to the peak of the second wave. As we see an improvement to the situation and the gradual lifting of the restrictions, I do hope that you and your families will be able to benefit from some valuable downtime, to rest and recover, and to come back refreshed as we increase our focus around rebuilding back towards business as usual.
Thank you for all that you do to ensure the effective running of estates and facilities which is crucial to patient care in the NHS. Please also take care to make sure that you and your families remain safe.
Estates and Facilities – ‘Talking Heads’ Videos
We recently shared a number of short personal videos featuring a wide variety of roles across the estates and facilities spectrum. The week we would like to highlight Claire Igo, Head of Environment Sustainability at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.
Please do share these with your colleagues and if using social media, tag in the national team @EstatesNHS
There are plans in place to film some further roles and we look forward to sharing those with you as soon as they are available.
Estates and Facilities Online Forum (on-demand sessions and feedback)
We are pleased to be able to begin sharing the links to the individual sessions at the NHS England and NHS Improvement online estates and facilities forum. This week we are focusing on the sessions involving Edward Argar MP, Minister of State for Health and the panel discussion of the Impact of COVID-19 and lessons learned, including what this means for Net Zero Carbon and the New Hospital Programme.
These sessions can be accessed via the following links:
https://vimeo.com/526099616/db58d9f76f
https://vimeo.com/526112263/94c193c0aa
To help with the planning for future events it would be appreciated if you could spare a few minutes to complete this short survey following the Forum on March 16.
The forum survey will remain open until Friday, April 16. Many thanks in advance for your help and support with this.
COVID-19: General Update and the National Vaccination Programme
We would like to thank you for your continued engagement with the weekly surveys to date. The responses are really important in helping NHS England and NHS Improvement as an organisation to shape how we engage with our healthcare workforce.
Click here for this week’s survey and again we would be grateful for your responses – the survey will take less than five minutes to complete.
While the situation continues to improve, it remains as important as ever for those healthcare workers who work tirelessly to ensure the safety of patients to remain safe themselves. This is especially applicable to the estates and facilities profession. Please continue to make use of the resource materials which are available now for use by estates and facilities teams to encourage staff vaccination take-up. These can be accessed from the Collaboration Hub.
NHS Hospital Car Parking
Julian Kelly, Chief Finance Officer at NHS England and NHS Improvement wrote to the NHS on March 23, 2021. This has been cascaded to Chief Finance Officers and Directors of Finance at NHS Trusts and Foundation Trusts as well as Regional Directors and Regional Directors of Finance.
The letter confirms the continuing commitment to free hospital car parking for staff during the current COVID-19 pandemic. It also outlines the Government’s commitment to provide free hospital car parking to those in greatest need as well as setting out the definitions for those who will be covered by this commitment.
NHS Estates and Facilities Teams will wish to be aware of this latest communication on this issue. Any queries on this should be sent to [email protected] marked for the attention of Michael Bellas and Gill Donachie.
Government Property Month
We are delighted to confirm that we are actively taking part in this year’s event and have been shortlisted for multiple awards that showcase the work of the Estates and Facilities profession. We have been shortlisted in the following awards areas;
• Sustainability champion - Hospital Reusable Gowns Programme: National Response to the shortage of PPE
• Project of the year – Mobilisation of the Nightingales and the role of the ProCure22 framework
• One Team Award - Patient Management in Primary Care: Local Response to COVID-19
• People’s Choice Award - Music for Wellbeing Angela Kennedy.
Members of the National Oxygen Programme are also leading on a fringe event (April 28, at 1pm) where they will outline their work in support of the COVID-19 response and the lessons learned. The event is free to attend and open to all, register via this link: NHS National Oxygen Programme– building critical care bed capacity at pace Tickets, Wed 28 Apr 2021 at 13:00 | Eventbrite
National Estates and Facilities Team - Questionnaire
The questionnaire in relation to the national NHSE/I Estates & Facilities Team has been reopened to allow a further opportunity for this to be completed in case you were unable to do so earlier in the year. This should only take a few minutes to complete and will help to shape future engagement with local estates and facilities teams.
National Webinars
There was a really good turnout for the recent national webinar on Backlog Maintenance and ERIC reporting on March 24. Unfortunately, there were some technical difficulties on the day which prevented even more members of the profession from joining. We are planning to run a further repeat session on this subject on April 19 at 2pm and hope to confirm this in the next few days.
Please also hold the date for a further national webinar which is scheduled for April 29 at 11am. The subject area will be finalised very soon.
Please e-mail [email protected] marking for the attention of Linda Hood and Tom McHugh if you would like any further information on these, or if you have ideas for future subject areas for inclusion.
Please follow the national NHS Estates and Infrastructure team on twitter @EstatesNHS
NHS England and NHS Improvement National Estates Team: Collaboration Hub
The Collaboration Hub is a protected space for local NHS estates and facilities teams to access key information as well as to collaborate and to share ideas and successes. Access to the Collaboration Hub for individuals from local NHS estates teams can be arranged by e-mailing [email protected]
Thank You
Our thanks to all of those working in estates and facilities for all that you in maintaining the NHS estate, facilitating patient care as well as supporting the response to the current pandemic. The service could not function without you.
