Internship Assignment B

Kirsten Reynolds

West Middlesex University Hospital

A.      West Middlesex has a vision of becoming a world class hospital for their community and to offer quality care in every way to each and every patient.

B.      The Executive Directors are responsible for the everyday running of the organization. The Non-executive Directors, bring their independence and specialized expertise to the Board, providing the necessary checks and balances to ensure that governance of the organization is running smoothly.

C.      Board meetings are held every 8 weeks with the trust board; these meetings are open to the public. The board meetings are where issues are discussed and big decisions typically get discussed and made.  There are separate committees that manage different part of the hospital. The Remuneration committee is responsible for setting the executive salary levels; they are also responsible for monitoring the NHS pay scheme. The Audit committee reviews the financial governance and control of the hospital. There are a lot of fundraising that takes place for West Middlesex and it is the Charitable Funds committee that is responsible for overseeing the hospitals charity funds. The progress of financial management and performances are overseen by the Finance and Performance committee. The clinical and non clinical governance arrangements are monitored by the integrated governance committee. Clinical Excellence committee assesses and evaluates clinical performance. Lastly the delivery of the statutory duties in terms of staff and service delivery agendas are overseen by the Equalities committee.

D.      Although there isn’t a private hospital extremely close to West Mid, West Mid does offer private patient care within their facility. I think by doing this it definitely attracts people who do want private care to still come to West Middlesex.

E.       West Middlesex hospital is funded by the government like all NHS hospitals. However on top of the funding from the government there are plenty of voluntary donations and fundraising.

F.       Donations to the hospital and funding from the government enable West Mid to buy specialist medical equipment, additional training and development opportunities to staff, and improve the environment for the patients and their families.

G.     West Middlesex has an estimated 1,900 employees currently working.

H.      As an employee at West Middlesex employees receive at least 27 days’ of holiday each year, along with public holidays. Other benefits include training, occupational health services, membership of the NHS pension scheme, and study leave for sponsored courses.

I.        A current issue that West Mid is facing is the amount of room in their A&E along with the waiting times. However currently they are in progress of building an add-on to the A&E to hold more beds and to hopefully reduce waiting times. Another issue they are facing like other hospitals is financial problems. With the cuts that have been made it is effecting the amount of money hospitals in London are being provided.