Chief executive update

August 2025

Welcome to my regular update to all stakeholders.

I would like to start by thanking the team who put on a very special event to launch South Asian Heritage Month at Moseley Hall Hospital . This is a great annual opportunity to recognise the contribution that colleagues of South Asian heritage make to the work of Team BCHC and to the very rich cultural diversity across the communities we serve.

It’s been a pleasure in recent days to talk to hundreds of our colleagues through a series of summer roadshows giving everyone in Team BCHC the chance to discuss issues, hear about clinical priorities and reflect on our shared Best Care, Healthy Communities vision in light of the government’s 10 Year Health Plan. 

The work we did, nearly seven years ago now, to set out that vision and our three strategic objectives – safe, high quality care; a great place to work; and integrated care, underpinned by a commitment to equality and inclusion - has, I think, stood the test of time and served us well as our compass in the years since. 

Following publication of the 10 Year Plan, we are in another period of major change in the NHS and, at times like this, it is helpful to be reminded of what matters most to us. The Plan sets out an ambition to develop a “neighbourhood health service” as the way of delivering the government’s three shifts for the NHS - from hospital to community, from analogue to digital and from sickness to prevention. 

At its heart, the proposed model is all about integrated care in neighbourhoods and localities, early intervention and prevention as well as recovery and rehabilitation. It is about helping people to stay well at home, providing community alternatives to acute admission and supporting people to return home and recover quickly if they do need admission. It is about local partnerships between general practice, community services, community health services, social care, secondary care colleagues and the community and voluntary sector.

As such, the national ambition is clearly consistent with our vision for BCHC, giving us a great opportunity to put this vision into practice. 

Many of the changes that we have been making in the last year or so have been designed to develop integrated care and lay the foundations for a neighbourhood health approach. For example, introducing integrated neighbourhood teams and locality hubs, launching Family Hubs and welcoming the GP Provider Support Unit into Team BCHC are all part of this journey. Work to improve the functionality and connectivity of our digital systems is also paving the way for further steps towards a much more digitally-enabled way of working in future. 

Successful delivery of our Trust Plan for 2025/6 is the next important step in this journey. Keeping a focus on the quality of the care we provide and ensuring patients can access care whilst we work within the money we have available, using our integrated care experience to improve urgent and emergency care pathways for Winter 2025 and doing so in a way that stays true to our values all help prepare us for the future we are aiming for. 

As we work with colleagues and partners to continue on this journey, it seems to me that the combination of our long-standing vision and our commitment to integrated care, alongside the national ambition for neighbourhood health, provide a unique opportunity for us to make a difference for the people of Birmingham and the wider region we serve.

Doing so successfully may require us to tackle some difficult issues as we make changes and will require us to keep a clear focus on the care we are providing in the “here and now” as we develop for the future. Our commitment, however, is that we will stay true to our values and find ways to tackle our short-term challenges so we can make the most of the opportunity to advance our Best Care, Healthy Communities vision. 

Given that the BCHC values have been a recurring theme of this update, I would like to conclude with a reminder that nominations for our Values in Practice Awards are open until 5 September, so please consider nominating if you know of a member of Team BCHC who deserves recognition.

A lot to update on, as ever, but I hope that is helpful. Please feel free to get in touch at richard.kirby@nhs.net .