Chief executive update

February 2026

I'd like to begin this message by acknowledging the continuing efforts of colleagues in responding to winter pressures in emergency care in Birmingham. As well as coping with the snow and ice at the start of January, this has been the top operational priority for our adult community and inpatient teams as we have delivered our Winter Plan and worked with acute hospital partners to help respond to the pressures. 

We have opened additional beds at West Heath Hospital, worked through locality hubs to support in-reach in acute hospitals and been flexible wherever we can to keep people in the community. The pressures on emergency care, however, continue to show in very long ambulance handover times at emergency departments and we are looking at what more we can contribute to the system-wide effort to reduce these.

Meanwhile, we continue to develop our Medium-Term Plan, identifying core priorities such as reducing the length of time children are waiting to be assessed for autism or ADHD; supporting colleagues' health and wellbeing; delivering of our integrated care model for adults and children. We are working on closer integration between GPs and community services, including district nursing teams, end-of-life care and support for people in care homes; and on overall system architecture, focussed on the Birmingham place-based partnership and providers working together within this.

As part of our planning, we are also reviewing the future organisational structure that will best support us to deliver our objectives, especially delivering care with partners in localities and neighbourhoods.

As I've reported previously, our biggest quality and safety concern remains long waiting times for children and young people in our neurodevelopmental pathways. Long waits are largely caused by the high levels of demand for ADHD and autism assessments and support, which greatly exceeds the capacity we have.

Our plans to improve this position during 2026 include the possibility of extending the 'alternative offer' of support, which has benefited more than 5,000 families since going live in September, and also includes ensuring we get the most out of existing capacity, while working with commissioners on investment in additional capacity; moving to a more needs-led model with stronger early triage and an additional support offer for children at lower risk; and improving the interface with adult services.

We continue to become a more digitally-enabled organisation, in keeping with the ambitions of the 10-Year Health Plan. We have launched our patient portal, giving service users access to appointment details and key documents relating to their care; and we have also now finalised our approach to data-sharing to support integrated neighbourhood teams, with GP practices as the lead data controllers.

 

Integrated care

Work led by the Birmingham and Solihull Community Care Collaborative continues at pace. There are now ten integrated neighbourhood teams in Birmingham, with a further four planned to go live before the end of March. The next phase of intermediate care development is also underway, including preparing the Perry Trees and Anne Marie Howes Care Centres for the new model of inpatient care delivered jointly by health and social care. We are also working with partners on the transfer of the unit currently at the Norman Power Centre to Moseley Hall Hospital.

We have continued working with Birmingham City Council and our Birmingham Forward Steps (BFS) partners on the further development of Family Hubs and associated children's centres. The city council has approved a full procurement for an integrated 0-19 years pathway to replace our current contracts for BFS and school nursing services in February 2027, with additional investment planned for services for children and young people aged 5 - 19 as part of the new five-year contract. Preparing a successful tender submission with our BFS partners will be an important priority for us in 2026/7.

 

BCHC Charity 

Finally, at our February Board meeting, BCHC Charity shared its annual report of all the 'extra' ways they have helped us deliver more holistic support for patients and families, carers and colleagues. This includes healthy lifestyle projects; 'winter well' bags that district nurses have been giving to patients; and the great work of the Direct Access to Wellbeing team in providing support to families that may not have ready access to basics like food and a warm home to live in.

We also heard about the Charity's work around bereavement support, including memory boxes for relatives, and also simple but important things like foldaway beds so that relatives can stay with loved ones in our palliative care services. Our charity is doing great work to help put care and compassion at the heart of our service provision, so thank you and well done to the team!

As ever, a lot to update on, I hope the above information is helpful and please feel free to get in touch if you would like to raise any issues.

 

Best wishes,
Richard Kirby
Chief Executive