Tuesday 28 October 2014

A look back at the last year

It was great to take some time to reflect on our achievements from the past year at the Trust’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) earlier this month.  It was my first AGM as Chief Executive and I was really proud of what we have achieved as a Trust.  When you see it all together it really hits home.  

I want to say thank you to all our staff who work tirelessly providing care despite the challenging times we are in, looking after people's mental and physical health and supporting patients, people and families to meet their health and social care needs. 

Nearly six thousand dedicated staff work tirelessly to look after people with health and social care needs. And behind each and every of those contacts is a story of helping somebody young or old, patient or carer, who is vulnerable, in pain, suffering, and in need of our help. The work we do is important and makes a difference - it touches the lives of thousands of people every day. 


Community services highlights 

2013/14 was a highly successful year for our community services.  We secured the contract for Trafford community services and we retained the contract for something like 96% of the community services in Oldham.  These are just two big examples that show time and again that Pennine Care is the partner of choice for Greater Manchester when it comes to running community and mental health services.  It shows a big tick against the work of our staff in the community for their care, compassion and expertise.

Overall it shows a direction of travel to care outside of hospital.  For patients it means your care is more often in your home or closer to your home. We are also building in self-care programmes, educating people on the condition they have.  In my view, care at home is more personal, more dignified and it puts the patient at the centre of their care aiming to empower them to take control in the way care is planned with them.


Mental health highlights 

Because of our long standing background of providing mental health services it means we have a strong connection with communities.  It also means we are psychologically-minded, which is often underestimated in providing good modern healthcare.  I think by and large we provide excellent mental health services and since 2002 when the Trust was formed I believe the care has increased in quality year on year. 

Patients now get more timely care, better access to psychological therapies, reduced waits if you attend A&E, better mental health support on medical wards if you are in hospital with dementia or confusion and if you come into hospital with a mental illness the wards where patients stay are of a much higher quality than 10 years ago.


Keeping care in the community 

Care outside of hospital won’t just happen, we have to make a case for it to happen.  If we are to transform care from long standing pathways that end in hospital, to care pathways that keep people out of hospital we have to be able to demonstrate that what we do works.

Increasingly now we are seeing the metrics, the data that shows we can deflect care away from hospitals and provide care in community settings.

Look at these figures - if you are assessed by our RAID team you are six times less likely to be admitted to an acute hospital.  The University of Chester study on this has shown a potential £3.3 million savings could be realised from the deflected activity.

Similarly, in Trafford where the CCG have invested in an urgent enhanced care team, we are seeing that people are less likely to be admitted, more likely to be cared for outside of hospital, accessing more timely community treatments, and potentially deflecting £1 million of activity away from hospital. 

Better care more cost effective, in or near to people’s homes.


Staff engagement 
We want Pennine Care to be a great place to work. Often we are, sometimes we are not. We have become a better employer but we must do more. Over the last year we have had good close engagement with many of our staff. I’ve tried to live up to my commitment to being open and transparent with a regular blog and tweets.

We have established a new occupational health service with a staff wellbeing service, a more psychologically minded offer for support to our staff. Stress is one of the key reasons for absence from the workplace and we must make sure as a mindful employer we provide the right care and support for our staff doing busy and at times stressful work.

Over the next year we intend to get closer to our staff than ever before.  If we are to meet the challenges ahead we have to work well together, the Board, managers, clinicians, support staff everyone making a contribution to build and deliver plans for our long term future. 


There’s so much to be proud of and many exciting and at times difficult challenges ahead. As your Chief Executive I am proud and grateful for the opportunity to be leading this Trust as we go forward.

This short animation captures some of the key stats and facts about the Trust from last year: 


Thank you.