Chief executive update

September 2026

Welcome to this month’s update for our stakeholders.  

As I write this message, there’s very much a ‘new term ’ feel - the weather is changing; children are returning to school, young adults are preparing to return to university; so, it seems a good moment to remind ourselves of some specific priorities in the plan we have set ourselves for 2026/27.  

First, some important children's services updates - we continue to await confirmation from Birmingham City Council of their chosen provider for a new integrated healthy child programme for all children and young people, from birth to 19 years old.  

This provider contract, starting in March, includes health visiting, school nursing , Family Hubs and family support. We believe that, along with our Birmingham Forward Steps partners, we have submitted a strong bid designed to meet the needs of children, young people and families across the city for the next five years and beyond. We expect to be able to provide an update very soon.    

Confirmation of some good news for families - I’m very pleased we have now finalised the first phase of plans to reduce the time children are waiting for autism and ADHD assessments in our neurodevelopmental pathway, following significant investment from Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board.  

At this stage, the plan commits us to deliver maximum waits of two years by March 2028 and maximum waits of one year by March 2029 - important milestone s in improving services for children and young people with autism or ADHD .

We know, however, that, even with these improvements, too many children, young people and families will wait too long for the assessment and support that they need. We are, therefore, continuing to work with system partners to build on the first phase of our plan and agree ways we can deliver more improvement faster.

 

Safe, High Quality Care  

Apart from in our neurodevelopmental pathway, our waiting times performance remains on track, with 82 per cent of patients on referral to treatment pathways and 87 per cent on community health service pathways - except neurodevelopmental pathways - starting treatment within 18 weeks.  

Our school age immunisation service transferred to Vaccination UK at the start of the new school year, following a re-tendering process led by NHS England. We are sorry to see the service leave Team BCHC and I would like to recognise the significant contribution the team has made to promoting vaccination uptake in schools across the city. We wish our colleagues well in their new organisational home.  

Work progresses on our digital delivery plan. This includes plans to upgrade the IT network link ing our buildings and GP practices, testing the use of Ambient Voice Technology   and progressing integration of our patient engagement portal with the NHS App .  

 

Integrated Care

We continue to work with partners on developing a new model of neighbourhood health for Birmingham. This is focussed on developing locality hubs; supporting the continued roll-out of integrated neighbourhood teams; and expanding the capacity of our single point of access and urgent community response services.

We are also developing proposals for supporting people with frailty through integrated neighbourhood teams and locality frailty hubs, building on our work at Sutton Cottage Hospital.

We continue to progress our ambition for closer partnership with GPs and are test ing some innovative ideas to explore how we bring primary care and community services closer together in localities.   

   

A Great Place to Work  

Reducing sickness absence remains our top short-term, Trust-wide priority. We are working closely to support divisional teams, prioritising those with the highest absence rates and individuals with the longest periods of absence.  

We have also added extra temporary HR capacity and have been highlighting the health and wellbeing support package available to colleagues. Feedback suggests i t is well received when used but we aim to increase uptake.

 

Future Operating Model

Work to develop and deliver our Future Operating Model progresses and we will continue to update as we prepare to go live in early December. But this is more than just a restructure - this is about adopting the optimal organisation shape to deliver better care for our patients and the communities we serve - more local, more integrated, with more early intervention and prevention of ill health.  

Our new structure is designed to create the foundations for more integrated, locality and neighbourhood-based care, with streamlined structures and leadership based firmly on our values. It will empower teams to improve services locally, with strong er collaboration across professional and organisational boundaries and better use of digital, data, technology and our estate to support care.  

A t the heart of this is our commitment to health equity and equality and we will support a “population health” approach as a system partner help ing all communities stay healthy and playing our part in reducing inequalities in outcomes.  

As ever, a lot to update you on. One final plug - our annual general and members’ meeting will take place on Tuesday, 15 September at our Trust HQ, Priestley Wharf, Aston (postcode B7 4BN) . All are welcome to attend and hear from the team in person - please register online if you would like to join us.  

 

Best wishes,  

Richard Kirby  

richard.kirby@nhs.net