Chief executive update

August 2026

Welcome to this regular update for all stakeholders with an interest in our work at BCHC.

First, I’d like to welcome our new Chief People Officer, Meagan Fernandes, to Team BCHC. We look forward to working with Meagan, who joins us from Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust at an exciting time as we continue to develop our Future Operating Model designed to organise our services and structures in a way that best serves and reflects the new landscape of a system based on the evolving national model of neighbourhood health.

The many conversations, ideas and challenges from right across our organisation about this important piece of work have been very constructive and we are now moving from the design phase of the programme into implementation as we get ready for an early December ‘go-live’. 

So, the coming months are very important for us in progressing this key piece of work, alongside delivering our annual plan objectives and, more broadly, playing a positive role in developing neighbourhood health - our three connected ‘big tasks’ for the first part of 2026/7.

 

Safe, High-Quality Care 

I want to publicly recognise the contribution of colleagues in keeping our patients as safe and well cared for as possible through the very high recent temperatures. Heatwaves are increasingly common and we will review our response this summer carefully to inform planning for future years.

We continue to address long waiting times for children referred for assessment for autism or ADHD.  It is very good news that Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board has approved significant system-wide investment in neurodevelopment pathways that will enable us to make progress in establishing a new model and assessing the longest waiting children.

In the meantime, we continue to offer additional support, particularly for the longest waiting families, as we prepare for a move to a ‘needs-led’ pathway, with the aim of launching this in the autumn.

 

A Great Place to Work

Our most significant workforce concern remains high rates of sickness absence, and we have agreed a set of actions to promote health and wellbeing and support attendance, including increasing HR capacity to support colleagues across divisions.

I would think to thank our Culturally Diverse Staff Network for organising a successful South Asian Heritage Month celebration event at Moseley Hall Hospital. One of the great strengths of Team BCHC is our diversity and this was a great opportunity to come together, celebrate and share that.

 

Integrated Care

Our performance on waiting times remains on track with our plans, with all our patients who have been waiting 52 weeks or more in neurodevelopmental services, as I mentioned earlier.

We have continued the roll-out of integrated neighbourhood teams, with 20 now live across Birmingham and Solihull. Locality hubs continue to develop well and increase their impact and will be a key component in the evolution of a neighbourhood health centre programme in Birmingham as part of the “Anchor” approach being developed by the Integrated Care Board and University Hospital Birmingham NHSFT.

Meanwhile, we are working with partners on proposals to increase capacity of our community urgent response and we are reviewing our internal urgent and intermediate care response at times of increased pressure on emergency care pathways to ensure we are making the best choices for the system as a whole.

As ever, a lot going on and we progress through an an exciting period of organisational change, doing our best to ensure that BCHC is in as good a shape as possible to meet the needs of all the communities we serve.

 

Do get in touch if you would like to raise anything with me.

Best Regards

Richard

richard.kirby@nhs.net