In July 2015, the Trust’s Estates team
presented a paper to the Trust Board who approved for an HQ and EOC
to go ahead in Crawley.

To
achieve the Trust’s objectives of establishing a new Headquarters
(HQ) and an EOC West, it has agreed to enter in to an arrangement
with Surrey County Council for the occupation of 28,858 square feet
over two floors. This will be a brand new building, which is
currently under construction and is to be completed in time for
occupation in February 2017 to coincide with the lease termination
of the Lewes regional office and EOC.

As the HQ in Banstead and regional offices in
Lewes and Coxheath also house Emergency Operations Centres (EOCs),
the configuration of the EOCs were reviewed.  It was decided
that a new EOC would be established alongside the new HQ.  The
new EOC would consolidate the EOCs of Surrey (Banstead) and Sussex
(Lewes) into an EOC West.  The EOC in Coxheath would remain to
provide resilience while alternatives for an EOC East were
appraised.

The new HQ and EOC is now under construction
in Manor Royal, Crawley.  You can see the progress being made
by checking out the live web cam at https://timelapse.regenology.co.uk/api/embedded/7kq/

The three current HQ sites at Banstead, Lewes
and Coxheath will move to the new purpose built offices, with the
EOC now being split over just two sites – Crawley and Coxheath.

The Trust has been working with design
consultants and engaging with staff on the design of the EOC and
new HQ. The EOC design has been shared with EOC colleagues and the
HQ design will be shared with colleagues in the middle of May –
invitations for this event to follow.  

There is a
Frequently Asked Questions section on the Intranet which will
hopefully answer the main questions that you have. 

If it doesn’t, please send your question to
Transformation@secamb.nhs.uk and we will add it.

We are on track to publish the consultation
document in May.  Once the document is published, we will be
announcing meetings in Banstead, Coxheath and Lewes to answer any
general questions you might have about the document. 

We will then be offering every member of staff
affected by the move, a 1:1 meeting with an HR advisor to discuss
your situation, answer your questions and address any concerns you
might have.  We expect most of these meetings to be held in
late May and June.

At your 1:1 meetings, the issues to be
discussed might include travel expenses, relocation issues, mileage
allowance and the new working environment.  There will be time
for you to raise other issues as well, if needed.

We are planning to relocate Lewes and Banstead
EOC Operations to Crawley in January 2017. Support Staff from
Lewes, Banstead and Coxheath will be moving in February 2017.

Ibrahim Razak on behalf of
the Project Team