Sara's blog - November 2017

Chief Executive Sara Munro's blog for November 2017.

Oh what a night to be proud

We celebrated many reasons to be proud at our annual Trust Awards event on 10 November. It was a night when some of our most talented teams and individuals were recognised for the contributions they’ve made to service user care and living our values (pictured).

You can read more about all the people that were nominated in the awards programme.

Whilst everyone deserves a special mention, I would like to highlight our leader of the year, Josef Faulkner, one of our locality service managers. I was privileged to present this particular award to Josef who is seen as a true role model and a highly valued member of staff by all who know him and work with him. The support, leadership and direction he provides allows his colleagues to continually improve the quality of their service.

Diversity and inclusion

We recently held our second conference on equality and diversity in response to overwhelming demand following the first one in January and a growing demand from our staff for us to put this at the top of the Trust’s agenda.

This comes off the back of the Trust being listed in the top 50 of the UK’s employers for diversity and inclusion as part of the Excellence in Diversity Awards 2017. The list recognises the commitment of employers on attracting and retaining a truly diverse workforce, achieving “equality, diversity and inclusion at its purest form”.

Suicide prevention

We’re joining up with our colleagues across West Yorkshire and Harrogate to adopt a zero suicide approach, where every death by suicide is viewed as preventable.

The plan, which was launched on 21 November, sets out how we will reduce suicide by 10% across the West Yorkshire and Harrogate area, and by 75% in targeted areas.

This is so very important and touches the lives of so many people in one way or another. In England nearly 100 people a week die by suicide. In 2015, the Yorkshire and Humber region had the highest suicide rate in England. It is the biggest killer of people under the age of 35 and the biggest killer of men under the age of 50, tearing families apart and leaving a devastating, lasting impact on many people’s lives.

Our Medical Director Dr Claire Kenwood is taking the executive lead for suicide prevention and identifying what resources we need to ensure we are actively contributing to this important work.

Working with partners in Leeds

We’re working with partners to develop a new approach to commissioning health care in Leeds that is focused on strategic outcomes using a population health management approach. And, as part of ‘The Leeds Plan’, we’re helping to deliver changes in how we work across health and social care to improve the effectiveness and outcomes of specialist care i.e. what we provide. The aim is to reduce demand through prevention and early intervention, which will require investment in our workforce, technology and our estates.

There is a planned programme of engagement with community committees across Leeds about The Leeds Plan and I will be presenting to a community committee in December.

Our Challenges

We’re still having real challenges around the number of out of area placements our service users are unfortunately experiencing due to local capacity issues, availability of appropriate care packages and delayed transfers of care into more appropriate settings.

A project team has been put in place and work is underway to look at bed management and patient flows within the West Yorkshire and Harrogate area to try and eliminate out of area placements.

In the last few months we’ve recorded an increase in delayed transfers of care (DToCs) in our inpatient services. The biggest factor is an increase in the number of patients delayed in being able to move on from hospital. This is causing us to come under pressure due to new targets that were set when our recorded DToCs were much lower.  We are working with our partners on addressing the issues causing the delays and the Leeds Health and Wellbeing Board has agreed to support us in asking for the baseline to be amended to be more reflective of the current situation.

Finances

The NHS received some good news from the Chancellor’s recent budget statement but finances are still a real issue for us and most of our partners. Our financial position remains on plan for this financial year but is getting increasingly challenging. A significant amount of work is required from our finance and operations teams to make sure we are being as efficient as we can without compromising the care and services we provide.  It is clear this challenging position is going to remain for the foreseeable future especially given the additional money announced in the budget is to be targeted at A&E performance and referral to treatment targets.

And finally, more reasons to be proud

Congrats to our perinatal service which has achieved accreditation from the Royal College of Psychiatrists. This is significant as it independently verifies they are delivering care and treatment which meets nationally and professionally recognised standards. Well done to all concerned.

Last month our occupational therapists arranged for a pony to come to the Becklin centre and the feedback has been fantastic. Pets as Therapy (PETs) is a growing area of interest across mental health and learning disability services and we are looking at how we can increase it further within the Trust.