Sue's Post Board Blog January 2018

Sharing stories on delayed transfers of care and refreshing our Clinical Services Strategy Plan

Hello

The Board met for the first time in 2018 at the Priory Centre in York.

We welcomed Martin Wright, our new Non-executive Director, and colleagues from the CQC as observers. We were also joined by our Director of Nursing and Professions, Cathy Woffendin (who officially joins us in March).

Three members of staff spoke to us about the impact delayed transfers of care have on service users and their families. It was painfully clear that the rejection service users often face is also felt by the staff who care for them. We were left with a profound sense of sadness that it is so difficult to find the care some service users need, but also uplifted by the compassion and dedication of our staff.

In fact, that caring and dedication was a recurrent theme throughout the Board meeting covering everything from uptake of flu jabs – which helps our staff stay well and able to care – to the way everyone had helped the CQC Inspection Team while carrying on with the ‘day job’. Our staff are remarkable and we perhaps don’t say that often enough.

In a busy meeting we approved a refreshed Clinical Services Strategic Plan. This flows from the strategic plan we approved at the Board meeting in November and sets out our clinical priorities over the next two years and how we plan to achieve them through five workstreams.

We also reviewed a new-style Quality and Performance Report which uses a combination of visual aids to help us see at a glance where we’re doing well – or not! It crams a lot of information into a logical and concise format.

We looked at a detailed Safer Staffing report which contained a lot of detail based on ward visits. The Board was reassured that our staffing levels are within the national parameters.

I was pleased to see our Non-executive Drectors asking informed questions. Many of these were about our staff’s ability to cope with our ambitious strategic targets and teasing out the detail of staff turnover and what we can do to recruit and retain our precious staff in a competitive world. We’ll be hearing more about this at future meetings, but it was encouraging to learn that there had been 200 applications for apprenticeships with the Trust and that the 20 successful applicants will start work in March. That tells me there is interest in mental health and learning disability as a career. Good news indeed.

Our next meeting in public will be on 22 February at the Bridge Community Church – you’ll be welcome to join us.