Leadership blog for August 2026
Our Chief Executive Dr Sara Munro shares the August 2026 edition of her bimonthly leadership blog.
Welcome to my bimonthly leadership blog for August 2026 – this one penned straight after our Trust Board meeting on 30 July.
Let’s start with some exciting news about our integration with Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust.
The big news is that we have decided that the name of the new organisation from 1 April 2027 will be . . .
Leeds Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.
This announcement marks an important milestone in preparations to bring the two trusts together – creating a single organisation to provide community, mental health, learning disability and neurodiversity services across Leeds and beyond.
The decision follows an extensive engagement process involving staff, service users, carers, members, governors, members of the public, and partner organisations.
From the options before us, we concluded that Leeds Partnership NHS Foundation Trust best reflects the organisation being created, while offering the balance between simplicity and distinctiveness that was widely valued by those who took the opportunity to share their views.
The word partnership was a significant factor in the decision as it reflects the way both organisations already work alongside colleagues across health and care services, local government and the voluntary sector. Most importantly, it recognises the importance of working in partnership with the people who use services, their carers and families.
Colleagues from both trusts continue to work hard behind the scenes to make the integration a reality. A few key milestones ahead include:
- Our “Best of Both” programme, looking at organisational cultures, will conclude in August
- The process for the appointment of a new Trust Board has started and will conclude by the end of October 2026 – with new posts coming into effect from 1st April 2027.
- We will submit a checkpoint report to NHS England on 4 September.
- A draft full business case (FBC) will be reviewed by both trust boards at the end of September.
- We will submit the final FBC to NHS England in October 2026.
Work has also started on developing a new trust strategy that will be approved by the new trust board prior to the launch of the Leeds Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT).
New service developments
Our rough sleepers service is continuing to develop alongside the My Gaff Leeds (MGL) service and integrate the delivery teams where possible. To support this work, the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board has issued a specification to the rough sleepers’ service which will be used as the template for the clinical delivery team in MGL.
For those not familiar, the Rough Sleepers Mental Health Service is a specialist community mental health service for people aged 18 and over, living in Leeds. They support people currently, or at most risk of, experiencing rough sleeping, who are unable to access statutory mental health services through difficulties establishing and sustaining engagement.
Our National Deaf Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service will soon receive additional funding from NHS England following a change to the national inpatient provision. They are planning on expanding their workforce across all three sites, which will be based on clinical need for those areas. We expect that, in the longer term, this will have a positive impact on flow and capacity for service users and families.
Work has started with Leeds Community Healthcare (LCH) to expand volunteer placements to include LCH services as they don’t have an existing volunteer’s function. A proposal is being developed for the local Governance Forum in June 2026.
East side! Visiting services based in York
I’ve recently visited our adult secure services at Clifton House and children and young people’s inpatient services at Mill lodge. The visits were arranged to discuss the proposed consultation on the new trust name which doesn’t include York – recognising this would be a loss for these services.
It was a good opportunity to visit the wards and meet a wide range of staff and service users. With the senior team we talked about the ways in which all the specialist and regional services could come together to ensure we design in the right leadership and culture, so they are all consistently well led, connected and valued within the new organisation.
I saw some great practice examples at Clifton House related to the culture of care programme on managing section 17 leave and tackling hate crime which has since been shared with other services.
Staff survey action plan
Trust Board has approved a plan to address the areas of reduced staff experience reported in the national staff survey results published in March 2026. Most pressing are staff morale, wellbeing and engagement.
The good news is that we continue to perform strongly in areas such as flexible working, reasonable adjustments, and staff feeling trusted to do their job.
I’m grateful to our People Experience colleagues who’ve spent time analysing the data and coming up with the plan, which will focus on:
- Workforce capacity and burnout,
- Reviewing vacancies, recruitment controls and increasing workload,
- Leadership and culture, particularly senior visibility, communication and responsiveness; and
- Career development and retention, including progression, meaningful development and the quality of appraisal conversations.
Health and care leadership in Leeds – the emerging Place Provider Partnership (PPP)
Last month around 100 leaders from across Leeds health and care organisations came together to explore system dynamics that enable or hinder effective partnership working.
The event formed part of the ongoing development of the Leeds Provider Partnership (LPP) and focused on understanding why barriers to collaboration persist, despite widespread commitment to integrated working.
The event was designed to support a system-wide conversation about how Leeds can strengthen collaboration in the context of:
- Closer workforce collaboration (Team Leeds and Leeds Ambitions)
- Neighbourhood health and community-based models.
- A greater emphasis on prevention and reducing health inequalities.
- Increased integration across health, care, local government and voluntary sector.
- The development of the Leeds Provider Partnership to be ready to take on formal responsibilities from the ICB.
Initial themes in the workshop included developing trust and respectful relationships between partners, more collective accountability for system goals rather than organisational ones and removing barriers to create the conditions for success.
Future success of the Leeds PPP will depend not only on governance and structures, but on trust, relationships, leadership behaviours and shared purpose.
A smaller group of accountable officers led by Tim Ryley in his new role as our Director of Partnership Development in Leeds is working together to establish a much clearer vision and ambition for what we want to achieve over the next five years. One that aligns with our statutory organisations and gives the purpose for the joint committee and the benefits of us holding a delegated budget and functions from the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board by 2028.
Reasons to be proud
Ward 6 at the Newsam Centre has been awarded the Quality Network for Eating Disorders (QED) Certificate for Most Engaged Service for the 2025–2026 review cycle, recognising the team’s commitment to quality improvement and excellent patient care.
Service users from Asket House and Asket Croft celebrated the unveiling of three striking art panels created through workshops led by Leeds-based artist Sai Murray.
The project was initiated by Dr Anjula Gupta, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, as part of an Improving Population Health Fellowship exploring social justice practice in mental health services.
Using poetry, drawing and collage, over five weeks they explored themes of identity, discrimination, heritage, culture and repair, creating powerful artworks that reflect their experiences and hopes for the future.
EMERGE Carers (part of our Complex Emotional Needs service) is celebrating a fantastic achievement after winning the Perspectives from Practice poster prize at the British and Irish Group for the Study of Personality Disorder (BIGSPD) conference.
They were showcasing their EMERGE Carers Booklet which was co-produced alongside carer consultants Alice and Lorna to support carers of people with complex emotional needs. A well-deserved achievement for everyone involved in the project.
Our latest team of the month is . . .
The West and South Community Learning Disability Team for providing exceptional, compassionate support to a person with a learning disability and dementia, their family and care team during a difficult time.
They were praised for delivering this care quietly, diligently and compassionately, and for consistently providing person-centred support of the highest standard.
Our latest individual of the month is . . .
Lauren Bolton for consistently going above and beyond for service users, colleagues and student nurses.
From supporting people to be fully involved in their care to championing learning and development across the ward, Lauren’s commitment makes a real difference every day.
She is a valued team member whose compassion, leadership and positive influence are highly regarded by those around her.
Sara’s Spotlight
Congratulations to bank worker Philip for receiving my Spotlight Award in recognition of the exceptional care, compassion and reassurance he provided to a service user and their family during an incredibly difficult time.
Philip was praised by a service user’s family for his kindness, compassion and support during their loved one’s final hours.
His dedication, professionalism and communication demonstrated the very best of our Trust values.
Scott Walker, our Older People’s Service Matron, said: “Sometimes nursing is about simply being there for others and holding someone’s hand. Philip was there for this gentleman, and he was there for this family.”
