Annual Report 2010-11 - West London Mental Health NHS Trust

Forward plans
which embody our values. We will continue this work in the years ahead, and will measure
progress by conducting a follow-up survey of staff and service users as a comparison against
the baseline measurement taken at the start of this process.
As mentioned already throughout the report, we’re very aware of the challenges
we still face both inside and outside the organisation. In this section of the report
we describe these challenges, and the plans we have to address them. In terms of
the changes we’ve made this past year, some of which have been described in the
report, our focus remains firmly on maintaining momentum as we strive for
further improvement.
Last year we made changes to our mandatory training programmes and introduced a new
reporting system which has resulted in significantly improved levels of staff attendance and,
thereby, compliance. Making the training as accessible as possible for our staff will continue to
be an area of focus and further expansion of online training is likely for those topics that can be
effectively covered electronically.
This year we’ve been consulting our staff on making changes to our management structures
to help us realise the efficiencies we need to make, by reducing duplication, and to help us
improve accountability in the organisation. We want to shift more of the responsibility in the
organisation to where it should be, close to service users and carers – that is on the wards and
in the community teams.
Our leadership
We know through benchmarking work recently carried out that we still have much work to
do to improve the skills and capabilities of those who lead in the organisation. Developing our
leaders will help us to increase the quality and productivity of our services. To that end we’ll be
rolling out the QUASIC training (described on page 6 of the report) to all our senior nursing
staff, therapists and doctors. Investing in our leaders will help us move towards our goal of
being in the top quartile of high performing mental health trusts in England, as measured by
those who use our services.
This year, we started a programme of Board development which we will continue, so that our
senior leadership team is equipped with the skills and knowledge required to lead this diverse
organisation and deal with changes in the health economy. Board members will continue to
prioritise spending time out in our communities talking to service users, staff and carers to
make sure they’re fully aware of the real front-line challenges at the Trust. These insights will
inform the decisions they make about the future direction of the Trust.
We’re currently putting our new management structures in place. In our local services this
means re-configuring three borough-based service delivery units into one clinical service
unit, reporting into our Interim Director of Local Services, Jean George. She is responsible for
working with our partners, and making sure that we’re sharing best practice across all three
units to provide greater consistency, as well as improve quality and productivity. We’ll also be
seeding some of our corporate services into our clinical service units, bringing them closer to
the teams of staff they provide services to.
Becoming a Foundation Trust
A major focus in the year ahead will be the work required to gain accreditation as a Foundation
Trust (FT). We’re aiming to achieve this by the winter of 2012 and will need the support of
everyone who works here and our stakeholders to achieve our ambitious goal. Current data
from staff and patient surveys tells us that we have much work to do in engaging everyone in
this mission and delivering services of which we can all be proud.
Our staff
Two years ago the Care Quality Commission highlighted the need for widespread and lasting
cultural change in the organisation. This year much of our focus has been on transforming the
culture of the Trust by embedding our shared values of Togetherness, Responsibility, Excellence
and Caring through the organisation, across every role and every team, from top to bottom.
We know there is still a great deal of work to be done in this area until our values become an
everyday part of the working lives of all our staff.
We’ve begun to incorporate the values into the systems and processes by which we manage
our people and most staff have participated in workshops to identify and commit to behaviours
We now have clarity about our strategic direction, having agreed a timetable for our
Foundation Trust (FT) application with our key commissioners, the Department of Health (DH)
and NHS London. We’re preparing for the three stages of due diligence review, the first of
which will be carried out by NHS London. Subject to the speed at which we progress through
this initial review phase, we’re hoping to have completed the second review by the Department
of Health by the summer of 2012. We’ll then face Monitor, the independent regulator of
Foundation Trusts, for the final stage of due diligence review, before we can progress as an FT.
In the summer of 2011 we’ll run a consultation, during which we’ll be discussing the proposal
and benefits of becoming an FT with our staff, service users, carers, partner organisations
and local residents. The statutory consultation will give our stakeholders the opportunity to
comment on our future plans and proposed constitution.
Annual Report
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2010 2011