As ever the past week has been varied...
We held our Board of Directors meeting last Friday and we were delighted to receive the results of our 2012 Patient Survey, focussing on our Gynaecology services. A total of 850 patients were sent a questionnaire and we had a response rate of 54%. Compared to our 2011 survey we were significantly better on 15 questions and significantly worse on 0 questions. It is worth noting that when compared to other Hospitals, the survey shows that our Trust is significantly better than average on 62 questions and significantly worse than average on 1 question. This one question related to the admission date being changed by the Hospital. We are already looking into how we improve this for our patients. Thank you to all the patients who completed the survey. We celebrated the results of the survey with our Gynaecology staff by delivering cupcakes to them in their place of work. They are such a caring and motivated group of people. Thank you for all that you do to make our patients experience a good one.
Our Board of Directors also took the opportunity on Friday to say a thank you to a number of staff who have excelled in their contribution to our services, our Gynaecology Management Team (Jeff Johnson and Gill Murphy), our Clinical Director for Maternity Services (Joanne Topping), our Post-graduate Medical Lead and Manager (Devender Roberts and Kathy Smith), one of our Human Resources Assistants (Hellie Patterson-Brown) for their work with local schools, our Marketing and Communications Officer (Mark Roberts) for his work on developing our social media and last but by no means least our Director of Research and Development and our R and D Manager (Mark Turner and Gillian Vernon).
On Monday I was proud to officially open our new Hewitt Fertility Centre at Knutsford, Cheshire with the delightful Claire Sweeney. Over the past 12 months we have invested significantly in new technology in our Reproductive Medicine services and changed working practices, which means that we now have the best outcomes for embryo implantation rates in the United Kingdom at 44.2%. These rates are comparable with the best in the world. A big thank you to our dedicated staff. Patients can receive both NHS and Private assisted conception services, through our Knutsford clinic and indeed through our main Hewitt Fertility Centre at Liverpool Women's Hospital.
Over the next few days our new Front of House and Main Reception will begin to evolve. You will see new flooring, art wall, vending facilities, a children's play area, new furniture and a bespoke designed main reception desk. The first of our new directional signage will also appear and we will progress with this throughout the site over the next few weeks. Thank you for your patience over the past weeks whilst this work has been under way.
I was in Widnes for part of Wednesday meeting with senior colleagues from across health and local authorities to determine priorities in an ever increasingly challenging environment.
On Wednesday evening we held our Council of Governors meeting. A big thank you to all of our Governors who come from many walks of life and support and challenge us on our priorities and plans for the organisation.
Thursday evening will be spent at the beautiful Liverpool Town Hall, meeting with Joe Anderson the Mayor of Liverpool and other health leaders to progress our thinking to address the health inequalities in the city.
Time flies when you are having fun. Have a good weekend.