January 2025

A group of staff from Worcestershire Breast Unit show the self breast examination model

Hello,

Happy New Year to you all.

As we would expect, this winter period has brought some challenges with it, so I’d like to start by thanking all of our staff and volunteers for everything they do to support colleagues within our system and continue delivering the very best care we can. Challenges in our local system include very high attendances at emergency departments, long ambulance waits and high levels of winter illnesses such as flu across the county, this can have a direct impact on our many community teams and community hospitals, both physical and mental health. We’ve also had some tricky weather to contend with - snow, ice and flooding. This naturally has a knock-on impact for many of our services, particularly those who are out and about in our communities.

Despite these challenges, we have much to be excited about for this coming year. Following a full and thorough nationally advertised selection process involving local partners and NHS England, we are delighted that Ellen Rule will be our new Chief Executive, starting on 1st May 2025. Ellen’s experience will be hugely beneficial in leading our organisation through the next steps of our improvement journey and I know the Trust Board and local partners fully support her appointment and are keen to welcome Ellen as she builds on the achievements of our Trust. You can read more about Ellen’s appointment on the news section of our website.

Our commitment to developing a compassionate and inclusive culture continues and is becoming established in our ways of doing things. A huge amount of work has been completed over the last 12 months in this space, including compassionate and inclusive leadership training for all of our leaders and managers, and 1000s of staff providing feedback to shape action plans, guides and processes.

We also look forward to hearing more about the new Government’s 10-year plan for healthcare and have delayed the publication of our next organisational strategy to ensure that we are aligning with the national priorities as well as those in our local health and care system. We expect to be publishing our new strategy in September 2025.

We also now have the enormous benefit of being able to hear the voices of our patients and carers consistently across the Trust thanks to the roll out of Care Opinion. Care Opinion allows patients, service users, carers and family members to provide feedback on their experiences in the easiest way for them. We’ll use this feedback to inform our decision-making processes to ensure that we are always keeping our purpose, to support and improve the mental and physical wellbeing of our communities, at the forefront of our minds.

Below you’ll find some of the highlights from the last quarter and a look ahead to some planned work, including the completion of our Mental Health estates investment works, our stand against racism, and investment in our minor injuries unit in Bromsgrove.

I hope you find this useful, but as always please come back to us using the contact details provided if you would like further information or would like to share any feedback.

Many thanks,

Mark Yates, Chair, Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust

Investing in our services

Bromsgrove Minor Injury Unit set to undergo £1.6 million major redevelopment

We've recently announced exciting plans to redesign and construct a new minor injury unit at the Princess of Wales Community Hospital in Bromsgrove. The new facilities are expected to reduce waiting times and improve patient experience.

Responding to growing demand for the service, we have committed £1.6 million to the construction of a new, larger minor injury unit adjacent to the existing facility on the hospital’s ground floor.

The existing unit will remain open while the building work takes place, with services expecting to relocate in the early summer.

Major milestone in mental health investments

Over the last five years we have invested almost £32 million on several major projects to enhance the environments within our mental health inpatient wards. Investing in our mental health portfolio helps to ensure that those requiring inpatient mental health treatment in Herefordshire and Worcestershire receive high-quality care, in purpose-built facilities as close to home as possible.

The series of works has been carried out to ensure that all our mental health inpatient wards reflect the latest best practice and highest standards of safety, privacy and dignity, while providing patients with a range of therapeutic interventions and activities designed to support their recovery goals.

The "Elimination of Dormitories" project was a scheme to remove shared sleeping quarters from mental health wards in Herefordshire and Worcestershire. The project was part of a UK-wide initiative to improve the safety, privacy, and dignity of patients on mental health inpatient wards.

In November, we unveiled the new Mortimer, a 20-bed acute mental health ward located within the Stonebow Unit in Herefordshire. The opening marked the completion of the eliminating dormitories programme within our services. The project has transformed our inpatient wards, with new ensuite bedrooms designed to enhance patient experience.

In a separate scheme, we invested nearly £1 million to improve our psychiatric intensive care ward and ‘Place of Safety’ suite also within the Elgar Unit in Worcester. These are specialist facilities to keep people experiencing acute mental health issues safe while they undergo assessment.

The final part of this investment was addressing building and location challenges present at the former Hill Crest ward. It was agreed following a significant engagement exercise to relocate our inpatient ward from Redditch to the vacant Athelon Ward in Worcester in early December. This move is anticipated to enhance the safety and overall experience for both patients and staff.

Moving to a new Electronic Patient Record system

In April 2025, we will be launching our new EPR (Electronic Patient Record) system – Rio. Rio will replace our current EPR system, Carenotes, to host patient data.

Rio has been selected after rigorous consideration; it is used across several similar NHS organisations across the country, including a number of our partner organisations in the Midlands.

Rio also enables significant opportunity to work more collaboratively with our colleagues using other systems like Sunrise and EMIS.

We are excited to implement this change across our Trust and hope this will ensure a smoother collaboration between us and our partner organisations. More information will be available soon as we move towards launch, so make sure to follow us on social media to stay up to date.

Care Opinion

We are continuing to roll out a new patient and carer experience online platform, called Care Opinion. This is in addition to our current feedback methods for example the Friends and Family Test, compliments, and complaints. We are rolling out the platform in 6 phases and hope to be live by summer 2025.

Part of the rollout includes training staff in every service to actively respond to their service feedback and running their own reports. To date we have trained 345 staff members, with 97 services either live, or close to go live.

Since we started in February 2024, the Trust has received 222 stories which were viewed 13,705 times. 57% of stories came from patients, with the remaining 43% from carers and relatives.

There are several ways for people to give feedback. 83% completed their stories online, with 12% using the freephone number, and 4% using the freepost leaflets.

The feedback we are seeing is also overwhelmingly positive with 82% not critical. Of the remaining stories they are described as minimally critical. These seem to be the little things, but that make a big difference to the experience of our services. Examples of this would be a TV on too loud in a waiting room, a course could have been structured slightly differently, or they would have liked more information following the appointment. Stories are looked at by the individual services, and where possible changes are made to continuously improve.

To find out more you can visit the Care Opinion website.

Supporting equality, diversity, inclusion, and equity

See ME First – taking a stand against racism

We proudly launched the See ME First campaign across the Trust in late 2024, a national initiative promoting inclusivity and taking a stand against racism. Through this scheme, staff are encouraged to make a personal pledge and wear the See ME First badge – a visible symbol of their commitment to anti-racism and anti-discrimination. By pledging, staff uphold the values of inclusion, challenging inappropriate behaviours, and ensuring everyone has access to the support they need.

Since launch the initiative has been received well by staff, with local media reporting on the story.

Samantha Boatema-Cooke, Head of Equality, Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity shared, “Our participation in See ME First reflects our dedication to fostering a workplace where everyone feels safe, respected, and valued. The badge is a powerful reminder of our commitment to equality and inclusion.”

Find out more on our website.

Addressing health inequalities

Improving breast screening access amongst women with learning disabilities

Our Community Learning Disability Teams teamed up with Worcestershire Breast Haven Unit from Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, to host a special event designed to raise awareness and improve access to breast screening for women with learning disabilities.

Now in its 5th year, the ‘My Breasts and Me’ event focuses on increasing the uptake of breast screening among women with a learning disability in Worcestershire. It provides a safe, supportive, and fun environment for women to learn about the importance of breast screening.

At the event, nurses from the Worcestershire Breast Unit gave demonstrations on how to perform a self-breast examination and explained what to do if you notice any changes or abnormalities.

Events like these are so important to help address health inequalities faced by people with learning disabilities. Research indicates that people with a learning disability are less likely to access early identification services for conditions such as breast and cervical cancer (Allen et al, 2018; NHS England, 2021 as cited in British Journal of Nursing 2023).

In Hereford, our Community Learning Disability Teams are holding an event to raise awareness of breast health for people with learning disabilities. Taking place on Wednesday 19th February 2025, 10:30am to 2:30pm at the Aspire Hub in Hereford, there’s lots to do and learn! The event includes a free raffle, mammogram talk, bra measuring, tea, coffee and cake, a checking demonstration, and a chance to socialise with others. If you or someone you know would like to find out more and attend, please call 01432 222 090.

Supporting our workforce

Celebrate with us this Apprenticeships Week

National Apprenticeships Week takes place from 10th - 16th February 2025 and we’re excited to take part in the celebrations! It’s a time where employers, education, and apprentices come together to showcase the benefits and opportunities apprenticeships can bring.

We’re partnering with Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust to hold two drop-in sessions on Apprenticeships. Additionally, we're offering online sessions for our trust apprentices, covering topics like preceptorships, employability, and CV crafting. Across our recruitment social media channels, we will be highlighting our fantastic apprentices throughout the week and providing guidance on apprenticeships. Be sure to follow along and join the conversation on Facebook and X.

Apprenticeships offer the chance to earn while you learn, gain hands on experience, and develop skills and knowledge to support your career development. With over 184 apprenticeships currently being studied trust wide, we continue to invest in developing our people, ensuring we can deliver the best possible care to our communities.

We are incredibly proud of our apprentices, who did so well at the 2024 Herefordshire and Worcestershire Group Training Association (HWGTA) Annual Awards. The Trust supported five finalists across four categories, with Tori Barrett taking home the Management Apprenticeship Endeavour Award.

If you know or someone you know may be interested in an Apprenticeship, or wants to meet our team at a drop-in session, please find dates and more information on our website.

Celebrating Christmas and the New Year across the Trust

Child with a Christmas themed painting on her arm at the Orchard Service festive grotto event We were delighted to spread joy across our communities and bring the festive spirit to patients throughout December.

In November, our South Worcestershire Wellbeing and Emotional Support Team (WEST) launched an appeal for presents for children and young people in the south of Worcestershire who were at risk of poverty and deprivation – in a bid to ensure no child woke up without a present on Christmas morning.

Thanks to the generosity of the public, our staff and local businesses, the team collected almost 200 presents which were wrapped and distributed to children ahead of Christmas.

Families supported by Orchard Service, Worcestershire’s children's community nursing and palliative care team, got a surprise visit from Santa at Norton Parish Hall in Worcester in December. The big man came bearing gifts, with each child going home with a special present, as well as enjoying many exciting activities on the day. This was all made possible thanks to generous donations from staff, the public, and local businesses.

Elsewhere in our services, the Estates and Facilities team based in Evesham held ‘Thankmas’ - a festive foodbank collection. Headed up by Sam Tustin from our Estates Help Desk, colleagues donated two van-loads worth of dried food and toiletries for those in need. The donations were wrapped into Christmas boxes and donated to Caring Hands in the Vale, a charity providing food parcels, toiletry packs, bedding, clothing, and blankets to people facing financial hardship.

At Elgar Unit in Worcester, Julia from Facilities and Administration Manager Bernie teamed up to raise £180 by selling cakes, all to buy Christmas gifts for patients on Holt, Hadley, Athelon units, and children's wards at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. They also collected tins of soup donated by staff at Elgar Unit to help community groups to support older adults to stay warm over winter.

A huge thank you to everyone who donated to our appeals, for their kindness and generosity.

Don't wait until Monday for minor injuries

Our Minor Injury Units (MIU) are open on weekends and bank holidays. For locations and opening times visit our website.

Lumi Nova

Help your child build confidence and self manage their worries. For 7-12 year olds.

Free for instant access visit the Lumi Nova app website.

Connect | e-Newsletter

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I'm Mark Yates, Chair of Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust. Each quarter we produce 'Connect', a newsletter sharing exciting news and updates from our services across Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

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