The Christie Foundation Trust Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22

The Christie NHS Foundation Trust Annual Report & Accounts 2021-22

Dominated but not defined by the pandemic

During 2021/22, many of our efforts have continued to revolve around providing safe, quality services for our patients during an unprecedented global pandemic. Yet despite the pressure our response to COVID-19 has placed upon our organisation, we are proud to have been able to ensure our care has remained of the highest standard possible throughout. As mentioned throughout this report, there are many examples of how both our patients and staff have adapted to the changes we had to implement, and of the dedication and determination of every single person in The Christie team to ensure we deliver the highest levels of care, and that we continue our progression and innovation as we maintain our ambition to develop a truly world-class cancer centre. During the pandemic, The Christie has operated as a protected site, working under strict biosecurity measures to ensure we have been consistently able to treat our patients safely. We continue to be amazed by our patients, who have adapted to the necessary changes in the best spirit possible. We understand how difficult it has been to ask patients for example to restrict visiting, but everyone has responded with positivity and acceptance, remaining reassured by all we have done for the safety of those in our care. And we applaud each and every member of our team at The Christie who have made patient care our highest priority. We have continued to ask great things of our staff where exceptional circumstances have become normal, and for that we couldn’t be more proud. Right now, we are very much business as usual for our patients, including those who have been affected by COVID-19. We also provide some additional treatment for patients who may usually have received their cancer care in other hospitals across our network. Whilst we have

plans in place to maintain services should a further wave of COVID-19 infection take place, we are developing plans that will continue to support the sustained delivery of our services going forward as well as supporting the full recovery of cancer service across other care providers in our Greater Manchester system. The Christie is working closely with the cancer alliance to accelerate the recovery of cancer services across Greater Manchester. Actions include The Christie providing additional cancer surgical capacity to support mutual aid arrangements with other hospitals. Following the Government’s decision to end COVID-19 restrictions, we continue to take a risk based approach to the easing of measures onsite. The vulnerability of our patients to the virus mean it is vital that we adopt this approach. As we continue our strive to get our services back to normal, our strategy at The Christie remains focused on four key themes: Leading cancer care, The Christie experience, Local and specialist care, and Best outcomes. Our desire is to always give the very best care and treatment to our patients, and we work tirelessly to ensure everything we do is focused on this goal. Feedback is one of the main ways we identify our strategy is working, and we continue to perform well in surveys and patient feedback exercises. The Christie once again received excellent results in the annual 2020 national inpatient survey. This is testament to the incredible hard work and excellence of our staff particularly our ward nurse leaders. The survey shows how The Christie scored against 137 other NHS trusts throughout England in a series of 45 questions considering all aspects of the inpatient experience. The Christie scored ‘much better than other trusts’ in around half of the survey questions (22 out of 45) and ‘better or somewhat better than other trusts’ in a further 21 out of 45 questions. In two of the survey questions, The Christie scored the same as

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