Sue's Post Board Blog - October 2017

Professor Sue Proctor's post Board blog for October 2017

Hello everyone

October marks my sixth month in post as Chair of the Trust. It’s given me chance to reflect on what’s happened and celebrate some of the great work we do. This was put under the spotlight quite literally in Blackpool on 12 October when our fantastic Personality Disorders and Eating Disorders Services were highly commended at the Positive Practice Awards 2017.

I was lucky enough to be there to join in the celebrations where over 20 teams and services from across the country were represented, so it’s a testament to our teams to have been shortlisted at all. I couldn’t help noticing that some organisations had also submitted multiple bids across the categories and, given we only submitted two that were both highly commended, I thought it worth a mention!

October Board meeting

That brings me nicely to the Trust’s October Board meeting, which took place on Thursday 26 October at the St George’s Centre in Leeds, where we were joined by representatives from our personality disorders service as part of the Board’s Sharing Stories segment.

We heard some interesting background detail about who the team looks after and how they help them. One phrase that sticks in the mind came from Clinical Psychologist Sharon Prince who said:

“We work with people mainly on identity, relationships and self-harm to make sense of their emotional distress and help them find meaning.”

Listening to staff is so important. So I’m pleased to report that, at the time of writing, we’ve already had over 700 staff, or 30% of the Trust, complete their annual staff survey. We’re doing more than ever to engage with and support staff across the Trust. Some of this is detailed in the chief exec’s report and some in the workforce and organisational development report. It was also great to hear that we’re currently running a number of health and wellbeing roadshows across the Trust where staff can get help and advice on healthy living. This is much needed, especially when you see how many staff are absent due to mental health or musculoskeletal problems (detailed in our performance report). We need to do all we can to look after ourselves.

In September we learned that we’ll be welcoming the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for a full inspection. They’ll start conducting unannounced inspections and staff focus groups in November and conduct their ‘well led’ review of the Trust early in the New Year. Members of our inspection team have asked to observe our Board meetings in November and January so I look forward to welcoming them. Our aim is to achieve an overall rating of good this time round and, given the CQC rated 77% of our services as either good or outstanding last time, I’m more than hopeful we can make the grade.

The Board considered an excellent paper from Chief Operating Officer Joanna Forster Adams on Out of Area Placements (OAPs), which is when service users are transferred a significant distance from their home for treatment due to a lack of local capacity, or sometimes, none at all. Out of area placements often provide a poor quality experience for service users, their carers and families, and can increase the time that people need inpatient care for. They also place a huge budget pressure on us which we’re currently working out with our commissioners.

There have been a number of fantastic initiatives by us and partners across Leeds which have made an impact on this problem but we are seeing the numbers creep up again after a significant and sustained drop. The Board agreed that a Leeds and West Yorkshire wide solution is needed to make a significant and lasting change for the benefit of our service users.

And finally, I’d like to welcome two new faces.

Firstly, welcome to Paul Lumsdon (pictured right) who joins us temporarily as Director of Nursing, Professions and Quality following Anthony Deery’s departure in September.

Paul gave a verbal update reflecting on his first month in post. He said he was bowled over by how much everyone had made him feel welcome and that the Trust had “a very good heart”. He’ll be taking the executive lead for quality which includes leading on our CQC inspection, and briefed board members on his immediate priorities.

Secondly, we welcome John Verity (pictured right) as our new Freedom to Speak Up Guardian.

John’s role aims to develop a more open and supportive culture that encourages staff to raise any issues of care quality or safety. John is currently raising his profile across the Trust so staff feel confident that they could raise any concerns with him if they needed to.

Next time

The focus of our next Board meeting will be our new five year strategy and members will be asked to endorse our vision, goals, objectives and a set of strategic supporting plans that will make it all happen. Until then, enjoy Halloween and bonfire night!