Implementing the strategy

The commitments outlined in this strategy are ambitious, seeking to overcome challenges and seize opportunities to do more for our patients and staff.

In implementing our previous strategy over the last five years, and particularly over the last two years during the pandemic, we learned a huge amount about how we can work purposefully and effectively over the next three years.

We have five priorities that articulate the mind-set, behaviours, skills and capabilities required to implement our strategy:

1. Creating strong foundations

Prior to Covid we had spent several years improving our staffing position, relationships with partners, the quality and safety of our clinical services and developing our digital and estates infrastructure. Entering the pandemic in a weaker position would have made our response harder and less effective, and the resilience provided through these vital underpinnings is impossible to understate.

We commit to excellence in the fundamentals of running a large hospital as the foundation for everything else that we strive to achieve.

2. Supporting frontline leaders

During Covid our people used their expertise and dedication to do amazing things. Teams across the hospital collaborated to meet new challenges and our corporate structures trusted them to deliver: reducing bureaucracy, devolving power and responding to requests for help. We want to sustain this initiative over the coming years, freeing up frontline teams to implement the strategy within their teams and across the hospital.

We commit to reducing bureaucracy and ensuring that frontline teams have sufficient time to drive change, including using service improvement techniques and with the support of skilled project managers to help deliver their priorities.

3. Communicating and engaging

During Covid we listened intently to the experience of staff and patients so that our response under pressure constantly adapted to changing needs. We shared publicly the extent of the disruption that we faced and how we were responding, which built trust and confidence and helped people to plan ahead.

We commit to sharing both our challenges and successes with everyone impacted, and to co-producing solutions with patients and partners alongside our staff, so that we convene the right diversity of expertise to identify and implement positive change effectively.

4. Working in partnership

During Covid we recognised both our strengths and our limitations and worked to share our strengths for the benefit of others and to welcome outside expertise to help us address our limitations. Co-creating solutions with our diverse tapestry of partners locally and ensuring that national decisions were informed by our and others’ expertise, was a pivotal part of responding well under pressure.

We commit to continued work with partners across the NHS locally, regionally and nationally, and with academic and industry partners, to enable us to innovate faster and do more together.

5. Using resources wisely

During Covid the NHS financial framework enabled rapid investment to support urgent transformation across the country, but other resources, such as PPE and testing capacity, were scarce. We responded by conserving precious resources to ensure they were available in the highest priority areas. The financial position across the NHS, and particularly in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, is under significant pressure, with an underlying deficit, rising costs and the requirement to deliver significantly more activity.

We commit to maximising the value for taxpayers’ investment in our services and with partners and will pursue transformative shifts in care delivery, especially with primary care colleagues, to unlock step-changes in efficiency alongside incremental improvements to productivity.

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