Sue's Post Board Blog January 2018

Sharing stories on the “triangle of care” and discussing our Quality and Estates Plan

Hello

We had another lengthy but robust February Board meeting.

As always we began our meeting by getting a reminder of what we’re here to do – that’s to make sure the Trust is doing all it can to deliver high quality, compassionate services within a legal framework.

Today we heard from a member of staff who reminded us about the importance of the ‘triangle of care’ between professionals, service users and carers, and a carer who spoke eloquently about her experience and that of her daughter who is one of our service users. We thank them both for coming as their stories were very useful and informative.

I know that the NHS and social care would be overwhelmed without the national army of carers who look after their loved ones with such dedication. The Board gave its commitment to learning more about our relationships with carers and to improve them.

We looked at two more Strategic Plans – Quality and Estates. These are five year, ‘big picture’ plans that sit underneath our overall corporate strategy. We looked at how we will deliver on our ambition to improve the quality of everything we do. We recognise that quality is everyone’s responsibility and we need to weave it into every plan we make and action we take – and measure our progress!  Above all, we need to win the hearts and minds of our workforce because they are the key to making it happen.

Our Estates Plan – in simple terms – is a review of the land, building and assets we own or rent measured against what we think we will need in future. We’ll be looking at our buildings, some of which will be reviewed to make sure that where we work is fit for the future. We will communicate openly about our plans as they develop.

We congratulated Dr Peter Trigwell, a Consultant Psychiatrist with the Trust and Clinical lead for the National Inpatient Centre for Psychological Medicine for his silver level National Clinical Excellence Award. The award recognises Peter’s outstanding clinical practice and professional leadership. We were also delighted to hear that Ruby Bansell and Wendy Tanger from the Trust have been accepted onto a new national programme to support organisations in improving equality and inclusion. We’ll be hearing from them later in the year.

Last but not least, we were assured that our Finances are on track and we will meet our financial targets for the year. That’s a good position to be in.

As always, please get in touch if you have any questions or comments about the Trust and our work. Remember you can come and see us in action at any Board meeting, but please that they are meetings in public, not public meetings where people can ask questions.