Hello everyone. This month, we’ve had the opportunity to celebrate successes across the Golden Jubilee at both our Annual Review and Excellence Awards.

On Monday 12 November, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, Jeane Freeman MSP, our former chair, met with patients, volunteers and staff before meeting with Jill Young, our soon to be retiring Chief Executive, and me to scrutinise our performance in 2017/18.  The Cabinet Secretary was very pleased with what she heard and saw during her visit, I’m pleased to say!

We shared loads of examples of the great work going on here at the Golden Jubilee.  She was pleased to hear that we treated more patients than ever before – carrying out over 55,000 procedures for patients across Scotland, and seeing 98% of them within the 12 week Treatment Time Guarantee. That’s more hip and knee replacements, more cataratcs, more heart and lung surgeries, and even more scans to help diagnose what could be wrong with people.

This is set to continue with our ambitious expansion plans as part of the Elective Centres programme across Scotland.  The first part of this begins with building work about to start on our integrated ophthalmology unit in just a few weeks time.  This is only part of the picture as, along with providing more procedures, this service development is about providing quality care and treatment that people in Scotland have come to trust.

Recent feedback indicated that 96% of our patients had a positive experience of coming to the Golden Jubilee. We have also continued our good track record in preventing and controlling infections, ensuring that Clostridium Difficile and Staphylococcus Aureus Bacteraemia cases were below national targets - an amazing achievement by our frontline staff in making sure these infections are kept at bay with excellent practice. 

Our research portfolio is growing year on year with 45 projects approved against a target of 32. Innovation also continues to be a focus.  One exciting element of this is our pioneering KEWS300 digital system for recording patients’ vital signs.

All of this and more has been achieved in our current financial year and we still balanced the books and are continuing to meet our financial targets!

Our staff are definitely at the heart of our progress. Last year we supported and invested in our staff and were the first NHSScotland Board to achieve Gold Investors in Young People accreditation, Disability Confident Leader status, and receive the Gold award from the Ministry of Defence Employer Recognition Scheme. We were also named in the Stonewall Top 100 Employer list for the fourth year in a row.

To celebrate our people, I was absolutely delighted to host the Golden Jubilee Excellence Awards 2018.

Held every two years, our Excellence Awards are an important part of our culture at the Golden Jubilee, as we recognise those who go the extra mile to provide an excellent service for patients, colleagues and the public.

The judging panel had a really difficult job to do as the standard of entries was so high.  We had more than 40 nominations celebrating the success of teams and individuals for excellence in customer care, involvement, quality services, collaboration, innovation, environment, volunteering, values, and clinical education/service innovation.

The people presented with awards by Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, Jeane Freeman MSP, were:  

• Our Hospital Expansion Team, who won the Involvement award for their extensive involvement and engagement programme which has put staff, patients, and third sector partners at the heart of delivering the programme.
• Tissue Viability Nurse Annette Hollis, who picked up the Innovation award for devising a visual aid which reversed a trend in device-related harm and improved the patient outcomes within just four months of its introduction.
• Anna Paz, who received the Volunteering award for supporting our ‘Meet and Greet’ desk and Occupational Therapists’ Activities Group for long term patients.
• The Thoracic Robot Team, who won the William Cullen Prize, sponsored by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, for leading the way in lung surgery innovation.
• Hospital Reception/Switchboard, who won the Quality Customer Care award for their extensive knowledge which allows them to provide accurate information, deal with enquiries and problems, fact find, keep patients informed, and support other teams 24 hours a day.
• Senior Charge Nurse and Manual Handling Assessor Mary Murray, who won the Quality Service award for improving compliance with manual handling assessments over a short period of time.
• Our Gala Day Committee, who received the Collaboration award for cultivating a spirit of cooperation and delivering a successful event for staff, families and the local community to celebrate the 70^th anniversary of the NHS and the 10^th anniversary of heart and lung services at the Golden Jubilee.
• The 2 East Housekeeping Team, who were presented with the Environment award meeting the demands of turning round rooms quicker in the new ‘fast flow’ patient area, all with a smile.
• Our Orthopaedic Outpatient Nurses, who picked up the Values award for going out of their way to ensure the department runs smoothly and effectively, ensuring sterile precautions are followed, and taking time to understand patients and make them to feel at ease.

We were also delighted to award three special awards to long-serving members of staff this year. Our Director of Operations, June Rogers, received the one-off NHSScotland 70^th anniversary Platinum award in recognition of 25 years’ service to healthcare, with Orthopaedic Surgeon Frederic Picard presented with a special recognition award for 20 years’ service to the NHS.

We also managed to surprise our Chief Executive Jill Young, who is retiring this month after 14 years at the Golden Jubilee, with a Lifetime Achievement in recognition of 40 years’ service to the NHS.

All of our nominees truly deserve to be recognised and should be as proud of themselves as we are of them.

Our staff and volunteers are what make the Golden Jubilee so successful: their care, compassion, innovation and ambition to always be the best - that’s who and what we are.  For this and everything they do, I want to say a huge thank you from me; you make my role as Chair here so much easier, especially when it comes to being proud of everything we achieve together for the people of Scotland.

Warmest wishes in the lead into Christmas,

Susan

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