Let’s refresh our strategy – Your Voice Counts

Staff, service users and key stakeholders are invited to our first Trust-wide online conversation where we'll ask you to re-imagine the future of our Trust.

Throughout March, I held 10 listening events across our Trust attended by over 200 staff where I shared our proposed priorities for 2016 and learned more about how people are feeling in work right now.

As a quick recap, our priorities for 2016 are:

1. Support and engage staff to improve people’s health and lives
2. Meet CQC fundamental standards and improve quality through learning
3. Work with partners to develop a clear plan for the Trust’s future direction.

As ever, I was impressed by the commitment and compassion of everyone I met. All staff want to do a great job and feel proud of the quality of care we provide. I know that staff need time to develop meaningful relationships with service users and carers to support people to improve their lives.

I’m now reassured that our priorities for 2016 are right and that there are some short term changes we can make to have a big impact on the working lives of staff and the quality of care we provide for service users and carers. I’ll feed back on how we are going to respond to the suggestions for improvements that were raised by staff in a series of fortnightly blogs.

You’ve also told me that we need clarity about our future direction (our third priority for 2016). Staff at our listening events agreed that, with a shared understanding of where we’re all going, we’ll be more likely to pull in the same direction with purpose and passion.

What is clear to me is that we must create this future direction together, with staff, service users, carers and stakeholdfirst, ers. We can do this:

• by imagining the impact we could have together if everything we did was outstanding;
• by agreeing the expectations we should have for ourselves and each other; and
• by developing a shared plan for how we can make our vision a reality.

I recognise that we’ve not listened as well as we could have done in the past. That’s why we’re doing it differently this time.

On 20 April, our staff, service users and key stakeholders will be invited to our first Trust-wide online conversation, where we’ll ask you to re-imagine the future of our Trust.

Through a rapid series of these conversations during May and June, we will agree, together, what makes staff feel proud to work here; what great services look like; the difference we want to make to the lives of the people and communities we serve; and how our Trust can help every member of staff be the best they can be.

By July, we will have agreed our vision, values and plan for the next five years. Please make your voice count by visiting www.yourvoicecounts.org.uk to get involved.

Jill Copeland
Interim Chief Executive