2018 – looking back, looking forward. . .
In her final blog of 2018, our Chief Executive Dr Sara Munro mulls over the year that was, reflecting on a few of our many achievements, what’s on the still to do list, tributes to faces new and departed, and in a seasonal twist, finishes on a song!
Hello,
Season’s greetings to one and all. As the NHS’ 70th year draws to a close, I’ve been reflecting on all that’s happened on planet LYPFT.
I did a short presentation to our leadership forum in November. The forum is a group of around 60 of our most senior managers and clinicians, who come together every few months to reflect, learn and develop as a senior team.
The presentation, entitled Looking Back, Looking Forward, was my attempt to capture the year gone by and reflect back to our senior leaders what we’ve achieved, whilst at the same time keeping them focused and motivated on the challenges ahead.
I can recommend this as something to do in work and life in general. Whilst I was compiling it, I started to remember all that we’d achieved, and there’s so much to be proud of.
You can read the full presentation here but in case you don’t get chance, I’ll give you the big reveal at the end:
It’s all about the people…it’s all about you!
Whether you’re one of our staff delivering a great service day in, day out, or you’re a service user, carer or family member who relies on the NHS, it’s all about you. That’s why we come to work and try and make a difference every day.
This was really brought home at our fantastic Trust Awards in November; where we showcased just a few of our great individuals and teams. Something I really loved was this mosaic of all the nominees (below) – a real snapshot of talent taken from a cross section of our Trust, including very importantly our bank staff, volunteers and other seldom seen heroes from teams like facilities, transport and IT.
The Awards highlighted how many of these teams came together to overcome the effects of the fire in one of our wards back in May, decanting patients and staff over to Bradford, and back again, all within the space of a few weeks.
Winding the clock back to early 2018 . . .
. . . we had some real challenges ahead of us.
For a start, we’d just announced that we were going to review our whole community mental health service provision, not just older people’s. Whilst it was the harder thing to do, it was the right thing to do, and I am grateful to everyone responsible for driving it forward. I was clear that I wanted us to engage with people honestly and in good faith – learning lessons from the past and putting what I called ‘clear blue water’ between any proposed outcome and an opportunity for staff, service users and the public to genuinely influence the outcome.
I’m pleased to say we did just that. You can read the results of our engagement here. Colleagues are still working hard to get the teams and systems ready to go live in the Spring – so good luck everyone but don’t get too comfortable, we’re going to be reviewing our acute inpatient services next!
After two years of consolidation, 2018 was a year we saw some fantastic new services start to emerge. For example, our veteran’s complex treatment team, our new CONNECT community eating disorders service, and the announcement we’ll be hosting the new NHS Northern Gambling Clinic. It’s important to highlight these new service developments as it shows that, as a Trust and a collective of people, we’re regaining our confidence, and clearly the confidence of others too.
Picking ourselves up after the CQC inspection
That said, we didn’t quite convince the CQC, and in April 2018 they rated us requires improvement for the third time running. This was a disappointment as there was so much great work they highlighted in their report. Staff were consistently praised for being “caring and compassionate” and feedback from patients said that “staff treated them well and with kindness, compassion and respect.” The report went on to rate 85% of the Trust’s services as either good or outstanding.
But we had to pick ourselves up and look seriously at the issues we had to resolve. One thing we’ve got to crack, and fast, is our rates of recorded clinical supervision. I expect the CQC will be back in the next few months with this at the top of their agenda.
Another area flagged by the CQC is the need to improve our record keeping and use of data. The good news is that in 2018 we launched a massive programme to develop a new electronic patient record (EPR) system using the CareDirector software. The programme is clinically driven and we are keen to ensure we develop a system which supports our day-to-day business. The project team have been working hard with a number of ‘change leads’ from clinical services – we’re relying them to help us configure the system so it works best for their teams. This is an ambitious project but it needs to be, as we know this is one of our staff’s biggest gripes and can limit our ability to provide the standard of care we aspire to. We’re aiming for the new system to go live across the Trust by November 2019.
Staff engagement
Our approach to staff engagement shifted during 2018. We started a new approach using our staff survey data to create heat map reports for teams and departments to really understand the issues and areas for improvement. I’m really pleased that we’ve just recently achieved a response rate of 58% for this year’s survey.
There’s also been important work on race quality, with the launch of our Workforce Race Equality Network in October. However we did have some sobering feedback about bullying and harassment, and following this we asked the independent employee relations group ACAS to come in and run some sessions with staff to dig deeper into this. I take this issue very seriously and in the new year I’ll be chairing a new group focusing on organisational culture.
As well as looking back on achievements, it’s also worth reflecting on colleagues who’ve either left us or started with us. In the exec team we’ve said hello to two new faces this year; our new Director of Nursing and Professions Cathy Woffendin and our Director of Organisational Development and Workforce, Claire Holmes, who joined us after we wished Susan Tyler a happy retirement in May. Thank you to Paul Lumsden and Lindsey Jenson for stepping in and stepping up respectively.
And finally . . .
Where now for the NHS? Well, we’ve got the 10 year plan to look forward to (due out early in January!?) and our local systems continue to evolve at regional and city-level. It feels like we are co-operating and collaborating more than ever, and I expect this to continue with the development of children and adolescent mental health services in Leeds (including the new inpatient unit at St Mary’s Hospital) and the new look Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) service.
I hope most of you get the chance to have a break and spend time with family and/or friends over the next two weeks. However we must pay tribute to the valiant workers who will be covering shifts throughout the Christmas period; on the wards, in the community, on call, or in supporting role us to keep our show on the road when some people will need it most.
And incidentally, if you’re feeling a bit anxious or stressed about what Christmas might bring for you, check out this lovely little video alongside information about our mental health drop in sessions happening in the New Year.
And finally, I want to leave you on a song. Thankfully it’s not me doing the singing but a band of service users from our Your Health Matters project singing us out with their Christmas favourites. Take it away guys.
Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
Sara