Building our future – Leadership Blog September 2021

In this month’s leadership blog, our Chief Executive Dr Sara Munro talks about the plans we’ve got to improve our estate - the buildings and environments we deliver services from. They have a massive impact on staff and service user care and experience, which is why we’ve made them one of our three Trust priorities.

Hello,

How did we get to September already? I hope you’ve all managed to enjoy the summer. For those of you with children (like me) I expect you’ve had to juggle work with various childcare arrangements, so hats off to you.

Many of you will have other kinds of caring responsibilities and will be looking out for family, friends or neighbours who might be struggling right now. Hats off to you too. I hope you’ve all managed to have a bit of a break yourselves.

We’re going into the autumn and every part of the NHS is really pressured, with mental health and learning disabilities no different. Referrals are surging, bed capacity is in short supply and there are ongoing staffing pressures.

The Prime Minister and the Health Secretary published their winter plans earlier this week. The message was clear – we’re not out of the pandemic yet and we’re in for a “bumpy winter”. We all have our parts to play in this – whether its following infection control guidance, wearing our PPE, getting your flu and Covid booster vaccines, working from home where we can, and acting responsibly outside of work too.

One thing I would say above all is we must continue to look after ourselves and each other. And that means taking proper breaks from work and taking leave. Please ensure you plan yours in.

Building our future

My blog this month focuses on our ambitious plans for our estate.

Our buildings have a huge impact on the quality of care or service we deliver as well as the wellbeing of staff who work in them. That’s why we’ve made it one of our three organisational strategic priorities.

Our estate is a mixed affair. We currently provide our inpatient services from nine specialist units across Leeds and York. The buildings in Leeds are part of a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) arrangement and the York buildings are owned by NHS Property Services. We also have a range of estate that we own ourselves or we lease privately.

Back in the year 2000, we were one of the first mental health trusts across the country to undertake a wholesale re-provision of our estate. And we were one of the first NHS providers to enter into a PFI arrangement which currently accounts for 52% of our overall estate footprint.

We are now preparing for the end of our PFI arrangements in 2028. This process needs to be driven by the future shape of our clinical services – ensuring there is sufficient capacity to support increased demand whilst providing spaces that are safe, therapeutic and efficient.

We also need to decide how exactly we want to use our PFI estate. To inform this process we need to determine what our future inpatient service provision may look like, and how our future clinical provision may fit with our existing estate (or not).

Our clinical services need space in which to deliver the great care we aspire to give, and fulfil our objectives to:

Support people in their recovery,
Support people to achieve their agreed goals and outcomes, and
Support staff to promote and coordinate helpful and purposeful practice.

This is going to be complex and extremely challenging. And we’ve recognised we can’t do it alone. So, we’re looking to enlist the expertise of a highly experienced healthcare planning organisation.

They’ll be tasked with establishing what our strategic delivery model needs to look like over the next 15 years, what our future demand and capacity may look like and what needs to inform this.

This will help inform our future estate’s needs, and in turn our PFI arrangements before our current contract expires. This is complex stuff but very important for us to be able to offer safe, reliable and effective care.

Refurb at The Mount

In the more immediate future, we’re looking to make big improvements to The Mount. For those who don’t know The Mount is home to our Older People’s Inpatient Wards, and until the pandemic started, our Perinatal Mental Health Service who moved out to Parkside Lodge so we could create a Covid ward.

We’re looking to start a project in the next few months to fully refurbish the wards and prepare for the safe return of the Perinatal inpatient team. We’re also looking to create an improved family and carer’s space which will be most welcome for those visiting loved ones at what are difficult times.

Staff wellbeing is one of our top priorities and we recognise that our estate sometimes isn’t great at supporting this. So we’re also looking to create a new space for staff to take well earned breaks off the wards.

We’ve not fully agreed this yet as we must consider the impact of reducing bed numbers during winter whilst the work is done. But still hoping to start later this year or early next.

Our Head of Wellbeing Alex Cowman is currently looking at how we can improve staff wellbeing spaces across our estate. Please contact Alex on alex.cowman@nhs.net if you’ve got any suggestions about how we could do this.

Latest from the St Mary’s Hospital site

Those familiar with St Mary’s Hospital in Armley will know it’s been a building site for around two years as we’ve been developing our new children and young people’s inpatient unit, Red Kite View.

Earlier this year we received planning permission to demolish the old Admin Block at St Mary’s Hospital, and during August it was flattened (see picture).

To realise our future ambitions for the St Mary’s Hospital site, the admin block had to go. It had become unsuitable and unsustainable for healthcare or for modern office-based work, and it would have cost us more to retain and use it than it would have been worth.

The Admin Block represents some rich history as it was originally a Victorian workhouse, then a maternity hospital before being designated for mental health care. You can read a brief article about its history here, and there are some amazing old pictures on this site.

Now the demolition is complete, we’re working on plans to landscape the cleared site. However, we expect the demolition area to be divided into two parts – with a hardstanding area and an area that will include a wildflower meadow.

We’re also thinking about how to recognise and remember the history of the St Mary’s Hospital site through the years. Watch out for further information about this soon.