As we start our new financial year, I have been reflecting on the progress we have made against our strategy and how this has enabled us to deliver more for our patients across 2024/25.

Our focus over the past twelve months has continued to be on our recovery for the future. We have approached this by exploring greater collaboration, innovation and use of digital technologies, and through empowering our staff to deliver excellent care to our patients.

As a result of the hard work of our staff across Royal Devon we have been able to:

• Reduce the number of people on our waiting lists by almost 4000 patients (a reduction of 5%), with far fewer patients experiencing long waits
• Reduce our cancer waiting times, seeing 74.6% of patients within 62 days, compared to 68.5% the year before.
• Significantly improve long waits in our Emergency Departments, achieving the fourth most improved performance on 12-hour waits in the country this year.
• End the year with our finances in balance, following a significant cost saving programme through the year, which recognised the importance of financially living within our means whilst keeping patient safety as our top priority.

As well as these improvements, we have continued to invest in our facilities. The last 12 months has seen the opening of a new Cardiac Day Case Unit and children’s area within our Emergency Department at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital and a new admin building, Yeo View, at North Devon District Hospital. We have invested in a new endoscopy unit at Tiverton which will open later in May to improve our waiting times and we have continued the rollout of our digital patient platform, MY CARE, which enables patients to access their Royal Devon health information all in one place.

So, through amazing team work, we have been able to improve the services we provide to our patients and the facilities for our staff.

As we look ahead to 2025/26 we recognise the financially pressured national context we are operating in and the significant challenge being set for us. As well as continuing to improve our performance, we know we have to operate within our means.

For the Royal Devon, as well as continuing to improve our performance, we will need to save £69m in order to balance our books again in this year.

We have been actively working with our clinical leaders to develop our plans to meet this challenge. We know that we are going to have to make some tough decisions over the next year so that every penny goes toward our staff delivering the best possible care to our patients. This will mean thinking differently about how we deliver care, how we embrace digital technologies and how we use greater research and innovation to meet the needs of our patients and communities.

While this challenge may be daunting, the Royal Devon is in a strong position to deliver on the things that matter most to our communities. We have plans in place to reduce emergency waiting times through expanding Same Day Emergency Care facilities.

We will continue to reduce waiting lists across diagnostic and elective and cancer services, through improved Community Diagnostic Centres, Surgical Hubs and the use of digital technologies and we will drive productivity and efficiency in order to reduce our running costs and live within our budget.

I know by working together with our patients, partners and stakeholders we can meet this challenge and continue to deliver the best possible care and achieve great things for our communities across Devon.