Leadership blog August 2022

This month our CEO Sara Munro celebrates our Big Thank You Fortnight, updates on our partnerships and collaboratives, talks about our bank staff survey, and our many reasons to be proud.

Dr Sara Munro, chief executive of the TrustWelcome to my leadership blog for August 2022.

Fuddle fortnight

From tea parties to cricket matches, picnics to BBQs, our hugely successful big thank you fortnight has seen colleagues getting together all over Leeds, York and beyond. I was delighted to see our staff meeting face-to-face and taking the opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate going above and beyond in their work over a particularly tough couple of years. We had some lovely sunny weather so many of these gatherings were able to take place outside!

Heartfelt thank you speeches from our team leaders were followed by the ceremonial awarding of Covid Stars to all our colleagues. See what our teams have been up to and follow the fun on our social media, on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Here’s a selection of photos from the fortnight…

With Covid rates rising and the extraordinary hot weather in our communities it was the right decision not to go ahead with our Big Thank You Bash at The Royal Armouries. We have seen widespread disruption across health and care services nationally. We too haven’t escaped further outbreaks, but thanks to the hard work of our staff these have been very well contained and managed.

We are Team Leeds

I wrote in my last blog about the structural changes to the NHS. We’ve waved our goodbyes to Clinical Commissioning Groups and have started our new way of working with our West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, on which I am the representative for mental health, learning disabilities and autism. The gap in health inequalities is increasing for many communities in Leeds – as an executive team we will work with our colleagues across these new structures and our local partnerships will focus our efforts on responding to the needs of our diverse communities, our younger and older populations, and the significant pressures we face as a result of the pandemic.

We continue to work closely with our West Yorkshire partners focussing on mental health, learning disabilities and autism as part of a ‘collaborative’. Just this month we met as a group with colleagues from NHS England to share the work we are doing in each trust and across West Yorkshire to improve acute and crisis care and reduce the need for local people to go out of area for inpatient care.

As a West Yorkshire collaborative we are now working through the next steps for complex rehabilitation – with a business case submitted to NHS England to obtain capital investment to enable more people to receive inpatient rehabilitation in West Yorkshire; for forensic Child and adolescent mental health services and Perinatal we are testing our new principles for a ‘lead coordinator’ and commissioner model that will enable a whole pathway approach from community to specialist inpatient care that we aim to implement in 2023.

In Leeds we have just launched the Leeds Health and Care Hub which aims to establish a new way of working to make sure the Leeds city region is a natural choice for people looking to pursue a career in health and care. Collaborative working between national (DHSC, NHSE) and local partners will help make the health and social care sectors a career of choice for our residents.

The Three Priorities for the Hub are

  • People and Talent – providing good local jobs and supporting local people to access them.
  • The Health Economy – Working together to continue to develop Leeds as a location of choice for health and social care businesses.
  • Policy and Delivery Collaboration – Developing a new way of working that allows for the development of knowledge, service improvement and innovation in health and care.

This document sets out the vision, ambition and priorities for all partners who have signed up to the hub

Read more about these structures and our Leeds Health and Care partnership on our website.

Listening to our bank staff

I’m very pleased that our Trust continues to run a survey of our bank staff to get valuable feedback on their experiences of our organisation.  We have led the way for several years now and am pleased to say thanks to the influence of our People and OD team the national NHS staff survey will this year include bank staff for the first time.

It’s so important to listen to the views of everyone who contributes to us providing mental health and learning disability services and this should rightly include our bank staff who fill our vacant shifts and go above and beyond for our service users. Bank staff will have the opportunity to discuss the findings from our latest survey and share their views on 16th August 9:00 – 12:00 The Vinery Centre, Leeds and we hope to see as many bank staff as possible in attendance.

Reasons to be proud
Award winning new inpatient unit

Red Kite View, our children and young people’s inpatient unit, has been furnished with not one, but two new awards to add to the haul of accolades since it opened its doors in January. At July’s ‘Constructing Excellence in Yorkshire and Humber Awards’ Red Kite View won Project of the year and the Integration and collaborative working award. Red Kite View has also been shortlisted in the Mental Health Innovation of the Year category at the HSJ Awards. Keep your fingers crossed for us at the ceremony in November. Well done to everyone involved.

We were delighted to welcome visitors Gillian Keegan, Minister for Mental Health & Social Care; the DHSC capital and finance team; and West Yorkshire ICB Chief Nurse Bev Geary. All were impressed by both the positive impact on young people the unit is already having, and the environment itself. It was also important to keep the future of our estate on the agenda and this was another opportunity to share our aspirations to continue to provide the highest quality care in safe and suitable environments.

Our commitment to patients and carers

I am delighted that the Trust has been awarded a 2-star Triangle of Care accreditation by the Carers Trust. This is the highest level of accreditation that can be obtained by mental health trusts through the programme and is recognition for the work we have achieved in working alongside our carers to improve their experiences.

Developed by the Carers Trust, the Triangle of Care programme asks NHS trusts and the people who work there to make a commitment to better involve carers in decisions. What an excellent achievement which really demonstrates our commitment during the pandemic to ensuring our carers were at the forefront of this important area of work.

We are veteran aware

Our trust’s One Year Review as a Veteran Aware Trust was officially approved on 12 July 2022. In their feedback, General Lord Dannatt and Professor Tim Briggs CBE said, “Following the trust’s initial accreditation awarded in May 2021, it is evident there has been significant work undertaken by those responsible for this agenda in your organisation, through the delivery of the OPCourage services and raising awareness of the healthcare needs of the Armed Forces Community across wider teams and departments.”

Team of the month

This month we have two deserving team of the month winners. Congratulations to…

Older People’s Services, West Community Mental Health Team/Memory Assessment Service – For continuing to demonstrate resilience in the face of staffing difficulties, several changes in structure, several office moves and changes in management.

3 Woodland Square Respite Centre – for supporting a gentleman with a severe learning disability, autism and challenging behaviour access dental care at St James’s Hospital, working with three hospital trusts to facilitate and plan his treatment.