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A note from our CEO
 The weekly rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Buckinghamshire has started to decline in February. With the government removing legal requirements for isolation, healthcare organisations across the country are reviewing various policies that have been in place to keep our colleagues, visitors and of course patients safe. Any changes to our visitor policy will be updated on our website, so please check this before you come to our sites. However, some restrictions will likely need to stay in place in order to keep our most vulnerable patients safe while we all learn to live with the effects of Coronavirus. For example, we will continue to require anyone coming to our sites to wear a mask unless they are exempt for health reasons.
Whilst the Trust is continuing to make progress, we are very aware that people are having to wait longer than we would like for elective procedures, diagnostic tests and in our Emergency Department. Recovery continues to be a key focus and we have successfully been reducing the number of patients with extended wait times.
At this challenging time, I am delighted to welcome our new Trust Chair David Highton who joined the Trust at the beginning of last month. David was Chief Executive of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Trust and then Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust. He succeeds Hattie Llewelyn-Davies who has left the Trust after almost 8 years. Under Hattie’s leadership the Trust has been on a remarkable journey moving out of special measures to achieving ‘good’ with ‘outstanding for caring’ in our last CQC inspection in 2019. Both the Trust and me personally are extraordinarily grateful for Hattie’s wisdom, compassion, leadership.
I am also pleased to announce that Raghuv Bhasin has been appointed into the substantive Chief Operating Officer role. Raghuv joins us with a wealth of experience; he has worked at NHS Improvement and most recently at Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust in Operational and Strategy roles. Raghuv will be starting with us in March. In the interim period, I am extremely grateful for Gavin Macdonald’s continued support and leadership through this challenging period.
Finally, I am pleased to share that our Blood Sciences Department has been accredited by UKAS, the UK’s national accreditation service. The team has been doing fantastic work and it is great that patients now have this added assurance as to the quality and efficiency with which their blood tests are being processed.
Take care,
Neil |
Our physiotherapy team is extremely proud and excited to be able to welcome patients to the much-improved hydrotherapy pool at Amersham Hospital. Trust Non-Executive Director, Tom Roache, attended a ceremony on Friday 18 February to officially re-open the pool.
Following the signing of the Armed Forces Covenant in November 2019, the Trust is pleased to announce that it has recently received the Bronze Award under the 
Claire Brandish, Specialist Pharmacist in Antimicrobials at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, has just been named one of the Pharmaceutical Journal’s Women to Watch 2021.
We are pleased to announce that the Upper Limb Studio at the National Spinal Injuries Centre (NSIC), Stoke Mandeville Hospital, has been highly commended in the Acute Sector Innovation of the Year category at this year’s Health Service Journal (HSJ) Awards, recognising their diligence and commitment to the healthcare industry across the past 12 months.
