They subsequently invited me to attend a senior management meeting, for them to give me an account and update on their responses. This took place on 7th April, chaired by Jeanette Tebbutt - Head of Nursing.
The meeting was well attended by their various senior staff, responsible for the nursing, facilities and estates services at the hospital. It was clear by the level and numbers of the staff involved, that this was far from tokenism - the meeting also lasted for two hours - and would therefore have 'cost' a considerable sum to host!
To make matters simple, Jeanette used my report as an 'agenda' for the meeting and went through each aspect of it. Nothing in it was disputed - but positively accepted - and it was being used as a 'template' to drive service improvements throughout the hospital going-forward!
In terms of evidencing specific action, one of the facilities managers produced an example of a purpose-made insulation jacket that was designed to fit beneath the wash hand basins that I had indicated were hazardous. (I had previously burned my knees beneath one such unit during my admittance at the NSIC during the summer of 2012).
In this particular instance, they had ruled out the possibility of fitting thermostatic mixing valves to control water temperatures, due to water pressure issues on site. In practical terms, in lieu of basin replacements (which were still planned for the future), the best temporary option was therefore to thermally insulate the potentially exposed hot surfaces to prevent patient contact with them.
The insulation jacket was rather like a 'picnic cool bag' designed to be strapped beneath the relevant hand basins - I seem to recall that they said there were about 30 of them on site.
I gave the proposal a firm 'thumbs up' and expect to see these in place the next time I re-visit to examine progress!!
Without boring you with further details, they were genuinely wanting to demonstrate that progress was being made on each issue - and invited me to return to confirm that this is so in reality.
One other aspect that is perhaps worth a mention at this point, is the concern they had about the recruitment of nursing staff.
Jeanette acknowledged that nursing numbers were 'down' on the Wards (not dangerously so, but less than required to deliver 'good' care) but they simply had great difficulty filling staff vacancies. They had tried national and international recruitment campaigns to no avail.
This aspect should concern us all - and should also be of concern to our politicians responsible for our NHS!!
We are now only just over two weeks away from a General Election where serious improvement, or damage, could be done to our NHS and nursing establishment. I can only hope it will be the former!!
I will be returning to SMH sometime in the summer to look at the progress being made - so I hope to report back with further news on the progress in my next follow-up blog. Tally-ho!!