Celebrating our specialist and learning disability services

Tom reflects on benefits of celebrating achievements and sharing good news.

Recently, somebody pointed out to me how easy it is to always concern yourself with new developments and moving forward, when actually there are also real benefits in taking stock of what you’ve achieved and sharing this good news with others.

This was something that we set out to do at our Specialist and Learning Disability Conference and Learning Event, held at the iconic Met Hotel in Leeds on Tuesday 2 February.

As many of you will know, the Trust provides a diverse range of innovative and dynamic services on a local, regional and national basis and a number of our services and clinicians are regarded as national leaders in their field. For us, this conference was a real opportunity to explore the learning and development that sets us apart from others and emerges from our daily work with our service users. I think everyone involved grasped that opportunity with both hands.

Each of the services that presented on the day, from gender identity to eating disorders and perinatal to forensic, showcased work they’re already doing. The day was about bringing it all together and letting people see it.

This was an important exercise for us as we try to inform more people, both within and outside the Trust, about our specialist services.

Key speakers included Dr John Morgan who spoke about the challenges, developments and opportunities in eating disorder services and Professor Barry Wright who shared insight into deaf CAMHS. John Burley gave an informative talk on involvement and accessible information in learning disability services and Dr Jo Ramsden addressed the topic of personality disorder and offending behaviour.

On the day, we were joined by around 150 people, including Trust colleagues, governors and executive team members, as well as representatives from NHS England, local CCGs, the third sector and the probation service.

This was our chance to let people know about what we do and to enable them to network and communicate with each other, and I think this was a great success.

It was really positive for the executive team to engage with staff and for governors and non-execs to come along, ask questions and be curious about the services we provide.

Our task now is to ensure that we don’t become closed off and that we continue to share the great work being done by services as varied as learning disabilities and liaison psychiatry.

We’re already talking about how we can replicate the success of this conference next year and ensure our next showcase is as good as the first one!

Tom Mullen 
Clinical Director of the Specialist and Learning Disability Care Group