North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare Our Trust Strategy

Welcome to North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust’s strategy for 2020 and beyond.

We are a Trust which prides itself on achieving the best possible outcomes for our service users and this strategy outlines our ambitions over the next four years.

Significant progress has been made over recent years which culminated in the Trust being rated as ‘Outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission. We are one of only a small number of Trusts to achieve this standard and one of only two specialist Mental Health Trusts.

We are very proud of this achievement and have continued to make significant progress towards improving health outcomes and reducing health inequalities for the communities we serve. This updated strategy sets out our sustained commitment to continuously improve services and takes account of national requirements and local priorities.

The NHS Long Term Plan (published January 2019) placed particular emphasis on the expansion and extension of mental health services over a ten-year period. We will have a continued focus on; quality, people, partnerships and sustainability to ensure we can achieve those commitments through safe and efficient services which will enable our communities to live their lives well.

The NHS Long Term Plan also has a strong focus on joining up primary, community, mental health and acute services together with new governance arrangements which will support providers have greater influence on service improvement and integration.

The Trust’s established partnerships with other NHS providers, commissioners, local authorities, police and third sector organisations, together with our proven success in collaborative working, puts us in a strong position to take a lead role in shaping the future design of services across Northern Staffordshire.

Our staff already deliver excellent care and treatment. They are compassionate and committed to helping service users and their families. Through this strategy we will continue to create a culture where they feel encouraged and supported as well as being empowered to find new and innovative ways to improve care delivery and supporting services.

We know that health and care services continue to experience pressure and resource can be scarce. Our organizational strategy will support us in making the best use of our resources by focusing on sustainable healthcare to generate financial, environmental and social value.

The Trust has recently been confirmed as one of only twenty-four Trusts to be included within the national Digital Aspirant programme, alongside our existing progress as part of the Lorenzo Digital Exemplar programme, we have a clear direction to help us realise the NHS Long Term Plan vision for digitally enabled care.

We look forward to working with our service users, staff, board members and our broader partners to deliver this strategy and further improve the care we deliver.