Praise for our hard-working staff over winter
Staff in our Trust and right across the NHS in England have been thanked for their hard work in providing high quality care to patients over the winter months.
Figures published on Thursday 11 April show that thanks to the hard work of frontline staff, and despite significant increases in demand for services; hundreds of thousands more people have been seen within four hours in A&E and ambulance services responded to the most urgent calls faster and with fewer handover delays. More people also received the support they need to avoid a long stay in hospital.
This comes at the same time as new data shows that the highest number of patients ever started NHS treatment for common mental health disorders such as anxiety and low-level depression in one month. In January, 103,524 patients started on Improving Access to Physical Therapies (IAPT) for the first time, which is widely recognised as the most ambitious programme of talking therapies in the world. Nine out of ten patients waited less than six weeks to enter treatment and 99.1% less than 18 weeks.
In the past year alone national IAPT services have had over one million people referred for care and helped hundreds of thousands of people to better manage their mental health.
Pauline Philip, National Director of Emergency and Elective Care for NHS England and NHS Improvement said: “Throughout the NHS, staff have worked tirelessly to deliver the improvements we’ve seen for patients this winter, putting in place new and improved services, delivering a record number of flu jabs and providing care directly to a record number of people.
“Millions of people in England who have benefited from NHS care and advice this last few months will therefore want to join me in paying thanks to all health service staff for their exceptional efforts.”
Simon Stevens, NHS England chief executive, said: “The country rightly owes our NHS staff enormous gratitude for these undoubted improvements in care over this past winter, while at the same time recognising the intense and continuing pressure under which frontline NHS services continue to have to operate.”
If you want to show your appreciation to a colleague who you feel has gone above and beyond the call of duty over the past few months, you can share our social media graphic which can be found on our Twitter feed.
