22 December 2010
I would like to take this opportunity and wish you the very best for Christmas and New Year.
2010 has been another fantastic year for our hospitals, with some amazing highpoints. Here's a brief overview:
January saw the official opening of the birth centre at St Helier which, only last month, celebrated delivering its 500th baby.
The Trust hit the headlines in February when newspapers, TV and radio stations across the country covered the story of Angie Baker, an Epsom patient who we helped give birth having previously had 18 miscarriages.
I will personally never forget March. It's the month when the Government officially gave the go ahead for us to spend £219 million of public money to completely transform St Helier.
April marked the end of the old financial year and is the point at which we are measured against the Government's key standards for healthcare. And, as I'm sure you'll know, we met all of them - for the third successive year in a row!
We marked Nurses' Day in May and Tina Taylor, A&E sister at Epsom, was awarded 'Nurse of the Year'. We also celebrated improved results in the annual NHS patient survey, with 91% of our patients rating their care as excellent or good.
Hundreds of staff and their guests attended our annual staff awards in June with 67 receiving awards for 15 years at the Trust, 37 for 25 years NHS service and six for 40 years - that's a combined service of 2,130 years!
In July, more than 3,000 people attended a summer fete in aid of Queen Mary's Hospital for Children and the Elective Orthopaedic Centre (EOC) at Epsom was recognised in a national poll as one of the best employers in healthcare.
In late August we prepared to feature in an ITV1 documentary called Surgery School, which followed three of our trainee surgeons during their first operations. More than three million people watched the series.
The Board agreed to invest more than £760,000 to improve stroke services at Epsom in September and the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, presented us with an award for helping and supporting staff to get cycling.
The Purley renal dialysis centre opened in October and hundreds of Trust volunteers gathered at Epsom racecourse for a special tea party to thank them for their continued help and support.
The pharmacy at Epsom re-opened after a £170,000 upgrade in November and the first bout of heavy snow and ice saw staff from across the Trust going the extra mile to keep our hospitals running as smoothly as possible.
December has been a busy month too, with the appointment of my replacement, Matthew Hopkins, and the opening of the new Cancer Information and Support Centre at St Helier.
This is of course only a fraction of the things we have celebrated during 2010 and there will undoubtedly be many more in 2011 and beyond.
Wishing you all best for the festive period and a very peaceful and healthy 2011.
Samantha Jones
Chief Executive
