Hello everyone,
Last week it was time for our bi-monthly Board meeting and I was struck once again by the huge amount of incredibly positive improvement happening across the Trust.
Our progress is something I want us all to be especially proud of as it comes during one of the most challenging times we’ve seen as an NHS.
We’ll circulate the key messages from the Board shortly but I wanted to take you through a few of the standout updates in my blog today.
I highlighted several recent award shortlistings and wins for the Trust including the Nursing Times, HSJ patient Safety, ICS apprenticeship awards, North West Coast Innovation Agency Awards and the Design in Mental Health Network –showcasing the really positive improvement work happening across the Trust.
Regular blog readers will know just how passionately our Board feels about maintaining a culture where both our staff and service users can speak up and have their concerns heard and acted on.
When we are open to feedback, it gives us great information and advice about how to change things for the better.
So I was especially pleased to hear an update on our complaints which shows that’s exactly what’s happening here at LSCft.
Using themes from complaints we’ve been able to directly impact issues through our quality improvement work and as a result we’ve seen a 50% reduction in complaints over the last two years which is just fantastic.
Even better, we currently receive seven compliments for every complaint – a real reflection of just how much our service users and carers value everything you do.
As do we. So we want to make sure we’re investing in supporting and developing our wonderful workforce.
One of the ways we’re doing this is through our hugely successful apprenticeship programme.
During Board we heard about the extensive range of really high quality apprenticeship opportunities across many different career pathways in the Trust. Currently, 4.2% of our staff are enrolled on an apprenticeship programme (against a national target of 2.3%) demonstrating investment in developing our workforce of over £1 million pounds – just brilliant.
It was also great to hear that 96% of our apprentices have chosen to stay part of our LSCft family.
With staffing challenges being felt across many services it’s so positive that we’re able to develop and retain our home-grown talent in this way.
We also heard from our Chief Medical Officer David Fearnley that we’re making really positive progress with the recruitment and retention of our doctors. We are expanding the number of our trainees and recruiting approximately one consultant per month including the first consultant we have appointed to Barrow in ten years!
We’re doing so much work with you to make sure LSCft is a great place to work and it’s so great to see this reflected by the amount of people choosing to join us and stay with us.
Lastly, I wanted to say a huge well done to our mental health liaison teams! You will have read in last week’s blog the incredibly positive report we received from the recent CQC urgent care inspection.
During Board we heard that despite our mental health liaison teams experiencing significant increases in demand they are still maintaining excellent performance with our one hour response time at 93% and four hours at 99%. This really shows the passion and commitment of the team so a massive thank you from me.
Until next week,
Caroline
