Visit to University Hospitals Tees Group

Our chief executive, Daniel Elkeles, recently spent a very enjoyable day at University Hospitals Tees Group - visiting both the Friarage Hospital (South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust) and the University Hospital of North Tees (North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust).

Formed last year, the group is an integrated acute and community provider covering the whole Tees Valley and extending into North Yorkshire and County Durham.

Daniel said: "It’s going to be a huge task bringing the two organisations together to deliver outstanding care across the catchment - but there is already so much to be proud of.

"At the Friarage, a brand new surgical care centre, fully GIRFT accredited, opened in July and is already exceeding productivity targets. The midwifery service has been transformed from struggling to recruit into one where students now want to begin their careers.

"There is also much to share in how they deliver urgent and emergency care:

🔵 The new organisational structure brings elderly care and community services together, with a strategy to increase care delivered in community settings fivefold.

🔵 At the Friarage, they run an almost unselected medical take without an ED or ITU by upskilling UTC clinicians and ensuring excellent joint working.

🔵 The focus is frailty and rapid discharge into the Hospital at Home team.

🔵 Their UTC IT system, based on GP software, allows clinicians to manage their own workflow – improving 4-hour target performance by 10%.

"At North Tees, the ED regularly ranks among the best-performing departments nationally:

🔵 Of around 350 daily attendances, 200 are streamed away from the main ED – a process led by advanced nurse practitioners in the UTC, who have proven to be the most effective at triage.

🔵 Direct referrals from paramedics, GPs and streaming nurses mean medical patients are managed by the acute medicine team rather than ED, ensuring the department focuses on true ED cases.

🔵 Streaming the vast majority of medical patients to acute medicine has required expansion of the service, supported by UEC incentive capital funding.

🔵 This has also enabled the development of a new ‘fit-to-sit’ area in the emergency assessment unit, opening next week!

"Thank you so much to Stacey and team for such an informative visit."