Leadership Blog for October 2026
Our Chief Executive Dr Sara Munro shares the October 2026 edition of her bimonthly leadership blog.
Welcome to my bi-monthly leadership blog for October 2026.
I’m going to kick off with an update on our integration with Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust which is now picking up pace and absorbing a lot of our collective energies.
We’re still on track to achieve the legal requirements for merger on 1 April 2027. Here are a few highlights from the last two months.
The process to appoint a Board of Directors for what will be Leeds Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT) has begun, following the appointment of Helen Thomson as Chair. Read more about that on our website.
We’ve drafted our Full Business Case (FBC) setting out plans for bringing our organisations together. It sets out three initial patient benefit cases where we believe bringing our organisations together could make the biggest difference. These are:
- Children and young people’s mental health,
- Primary care mental health, and
- Neighbourhood health.
And . . . we’ve had over 1,700 colleagues contribute to our Best of Both campaign to shape the culture of ‘LPFT’ through workshops, one-to-ones, roadshows and a survey. Overall findings are encouraging, with colleagues naming many shared strengths across both organisations. We’ve also set up a new cultural engagement group called ‘100 Voices’ who will help shape our values and behaviours further.
Visit to the Askets
It was a pleasure to meet with staff and service users at our community-based rehab centre at ‘The Askets’ in Seacroft recently. Their highly-committed leadership teams shared work they are doing to support staff and improve services. There has been a stronger focus on reducing sickness absence and recent success in recruiting newly qualified nurses and occupational therapists.
The team highlighted some of the environmental changes that have been made following the CQC inspection early this year, and how they’re preparing for peer review visits to evaluate and support ongoing improvements.
The patients I met with at both units were all consistent in their high praise for the support, interventions and relationships fostered with staff – specific mention was made for the nursing and occupational therapy staff. It was also great to hear about the strengthening of links with community-based activities and greater in-reach for the community rehabilitation team.
Community First – our new approach to improving patient flow and reducing out of area placements
Anyone who follows my blogs will know about our long and enduring struggles to improve the flow of patients in and out of inpatient wards, to reduce the length of stay on wards and eradicate our use of out of area placements (OAPs).
Whilst we’ve made some good progress (see below), we’ve decided to change our approach.
Our new Community First programme has now been established – headed up by Head of Operations Josef Faulkner and Psychiatrist Dr Ben Alderson. They will be implementing a dynamic change programme with the ultimate aims of:
- Reducing out of area placements to zero, and
- Reducing length of stay to levels recognised nationally as good.
I would like to thank colleagues who’ve taken this work forward up to this point. And I would like to highlight a recent report shared at September’s Trust Board which showed a 50% reduction in reliance on adult acute and psychiatric intensive care unit OAPs during 2026/27 compared with 2025/26. This has been accompanied by a corresponding reduction in OAP bed days of approximately 36%, indicating both fewer patients requiring out of area care and a reduction in the overall time spent in external placements.
NHS – SoS
Since my last blog there have been significant changes in political leadership and personnel. Our new Secretary of State (SoS) for health and social care is Yvette Cooper – the long serving MP for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley.
I joined fellow chief execs in a welcome meeting with Yvette where she shared her observations of the progress and challenges in health and social acre.
She also talked about areas of personal focus which centred on the importance of national standards delivered locally, working in partnership with citizens and communities. Her key areas of interest included maternity service improvements and children and young people’s mental health.
Changes in the Leeds health system
Massive changes are taking place in the way that integrated care boards (ICBs) work across England with vastly reduced workforces – and West Yorkshire is no exception.
As such the West Yorkshire ICB will not be operating a team at Leeds ‘place’ level. Instead, the plan is for some of its functions to be delegated to a Leeds Place Provider Partnership (PPP) consisting of NHS providers, the city council, and other health and care partners. We are hoping that the Leeds PPP to be ready to take on such functions by April 2028.
Former chief exec of the Leeds office of the ICB, Tim Ryley, has now taken up post as our Director of Leeds Provider Partnership – supporting arrangements to take on delegated functions from the ICB. Tim will work closely with the ICB’s Director of Integration once they have been appointed.
Government action on gambling harms means expanding our service
Our NHS Northern Gambling Service is set to expand as a result of changes by government. In April 2025 a new statutory levy on gambling operators came into effect to support system-wide improvements in the research, prevention and treatment of gambling-related harms across the UK.
Fifty per cent of this levy is allocated to NHS England as the treatment commissioner. During 2026/27 funding is due to be handed down to current NHS providers to expand services and meet demands. From April 2027 there will be further funding available, with more changes to the commissioning model.
I’m delighted that the Northern Gambling Service is poised to accept the additional funding to expand its operations across the North of England – spearheaded by clinical lead Dr Matt Gaskell MBE who was instrumental in lobbying government for the implementation of the levy.
Reasons to be proud
Celebrating success at our joint Annual General Meeting
We held a joint event with LCH on 14 September which included a celebration of work by both trusts.
We heard about some fascinating innovation in practice through the Heidi AI pilot in our Gender Identity Service, LCH shared the impact of their charity team, we heard about the power of peer support workers in rehab and recovery, and how digital inclusion can start with one simple question.
Read the full report and watch the highlights video on our website.
Our latest individual of the month is . . .
Abigail Cranswick – Occupational Therapist and Sensory Integration Practitioner at our young people’s inpatient unit in York. Abi has been recognised for her outstanding leadership, compassion and commitment to supporting safe, person-centred care during a particularly challenging shift.
Abi’s calm leadership, compassion and dedication made a real difference during a challenging situation, supporting both young people and colleagues when it mattered most.
Our latest Team of the Month is . . .
The Older Peoples Service (OPS) Liaison Team – who have been recognised for their exceptional dedication, compassion and resilience while delivering outstanding care under significant and sustained pressure.
EMERGE recognised
Our complex emotional needs service EMERGE has been highlighted in a national Churchill Fellowship report for its innovative approach to supporting young people with complex emotional needs. They were one of only four UK services featured in the report receiving praise for their relational, trauma-informed approach to care.
The King’s representative visit to the Becklin Centre
The Trust’s Becklin Centre played host to the Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire, Professor Adeeba Malik, on 10 September.
Prof Malik (pictured centre above) was invited on a tour of the wards and departments there by the Chairs of both Leeds Community Healthcare and Leeds and York Partnership Trusts (Helen Thomson DL and Merran McRae respectively).
The three were shown around inpatient wards, therapy rooms, and had a round table discussion with members of the Crisis Resolution Intensive Support Service.
With her professional interests in education and social inclusion, Prof Malik was keen to hear about the types of people they cared for and how things like poverty and social media were affecting mental health. As someone with broad experience in the voluntary sector, she was also keen to hear about partnership working.
Read more and hear Prof Malik’s reflections following her visit on our website.