The meeting, which gave local people the chance to hear a roundup of what happened during 2013-14 and to put any questions directly to the Trust Board, has been deemed a success.
The event began with an interactive ‘market place’ in the Ingredients restaurant, where services across the hospitals could promote their work and speak to local people, visitors and other staff. The market place gave all of the guests the chance to try our special age simulation suit (which has weights on the legs and arms to simulate the feeling of stiff and swollen joints, goggles that restrict vision to mimic the symptoms of glaucoma and a back brace that cuts down flexibility in the spine) and learn about our state-of-the-art simulation training dummy.
The meeting was then formally opened by our Chairman, Laurence Newman, before Chief Executive Chrisha Alagaratnam took the reins to talk about the future of our organisation.
There was even a special award given halfway through the proceedings, after a new mum Hannah nominated Dr Ruth Charlton for the Chief Executive’s Award of Excellence. Chrisha was so touched by Hannah’s nomination for Ruth that she decided to present the award in front of the audience.
Chrisha explained: “There’s no doubt in my mind that last year was one to be proud of. As a team, and despite some significant challenges on the way, we managed to make great headway in reducing our financial deficit while at the same time making great improvements for our patients.
“Our Annual Public Meeting gave us the perfect opportunity to share that with local people, and to hear what they think of our services. It was a fantastic event, and made me truly proud to be the Chief Executive of this organisation. I would like to thank all involved in the event and all of our guests – including local councillors, parliamentary candidates and MP for Sutton and Cheam, Paul Burstow.”
We also officially launched our annual report for 2013-14 at the meeting. The document gives an overview of our achievements over the last year and includes detailed information about our financial performance.
For your copy of the annual report, please contact the communications and corporate affairs team on 020 8296 4992, or email [email protected].
The photo shows (from left) Hannah and baby Austin, Dr Charlton and Chief Executive Chrisha.