North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust has appointed Sarah Newton as Senior Service Manager for the delivery of the Trust’s work in the Community Mental Health Transformation Programme.
Sarah, welcome to Combined Healthcare! Could you tell us more about what you will be doing for the Programme?
My role, linked to the transformation of Community Mental Health Services, will be to co-ordinate the transformation journey we are taking from the Trust’s perspective. Key aspects of this will include linking with our workforce, local partners and also our service users to understand how positive change should look.
More broadly, I will be involved in other transformation work as part of my role too and very much look forward to working across the Directorates to support ongoing and new programmes of work.
What are you most excited about for this Programme?
There are so many things to be excited about. First and foremost though, I’m excited about this Programme empowering people to work together to create mental health services that are inclusive, accessible and responsive to individuals’ needs.
The Community Mental Health Transformation Programme is also a unique opportunity to remove any traditional barriers and provide personalised support that prevents people having to tell their story multiple times.
It is fantastic that we already have great services and principles from which to build, so I believe that I am in a privileged position to be working as part of a team to progress this work and look forward to linking with a wide range of people over the coming months with this in mind.
The Programme includes collaboration from a wide variety of services and teams at Combined. Could you tell us more about how colleagues are working together?
Collaborative working is a vital element of the Programme and will be key to delivering the best outcomes for service users. Trust colleagues have been working closely with a wide range of partner agencies and service users since the outset and this approach will continue as we move through this three year programme.
More specifically, collaboration with our PCN colleagues has seen positive developments such as the recruitment to ARRS/Mental Health Practitioner roles very recently. We are also currently working closely with Procurement colleagues to develop service specifications that will bring additional resource and expertise into the Trust.
Looking at our own teams and services, the collaboration of colleagues within our Directorates has enabled us to build solid foundations in the first part of this programme of work. I hope that we will now expand this and link with teams and staff more broadly to seek their views and valued input.
How can people find out more information about the Trust’s work in the Programme?
We’ll continue to update through our communications, corporate social media channels on Twitter and Facebook, podcasts and other means.
You can also view our section of the Programme’s web pages at https://www.twbstaffsandstoke.org.uk/about-us/our-work/mental-health/adult-community-mental-health-transformation/community-mental-health-transformation-north-staffordshire