What is the vision of your Organisation?
As an NHS Foundation Trust, we are the lead provider of NHS services for people with mental ill health, substance misuse addictions, learning disabilities and neurodevelopmental difficulties, for our communities.
Why has your Organisation signed the ‘End Poverty Pledge’?
We are committed to using the opportunities we have to end poverty in our communities and recognise that those we serve are more likely to experience financial hardship.
What examples can you give of your Organisation putting the ‘End Poverty Pledge’ into practice?
We work hard to form partnerships and develop integrated care pathways with other agencies who are important to help people who use our services live better lives, including signposting people to others able to support them and providing services as close to home as possible.
We invest in our talent, support career progression and develop leadership capabilities and capacity. We have an active in- house learning and development programme, a growing apprenticeship programme and enable staff to access further educational opportunities including courses to gain qualifications to support their practice development and career progression.
We support staff experiencing financial hardship through targeted initiatives, e.g. staff hardship fund, access to discount schemes (Perkbox) and staff clothing swap shops.
We offer flexible working to support employees to maintain their work/life balance and remain in employment.
Our People’s Participation team helps us to engage with people in our communities with lived experience, many of whom may have personal experience or knowledge of financial hardship, so that their experiences can inform how we work and tell us where we need to improve.
We have policies in place to ensure we procure goods and services locally wherever possible to boost the local economy.
What would you hope to be able to do more of in the longer term?
Collecting and reviewing data which enables us to understand better the needs of people using our services, including the social determinants of health where possible, to inform our transformation and improvement programmes.
Making available, to those who are eligible, NHS funded transport to support their access to care and support. Participating in a scheme which enables staff with children to manage the costs of childcare.
Growing our lived experience workforce to offer more employment opportunities locally to those who may have been excluded from employment previously.
Continue to develop our partnerships with other agencies to build community resilience and that of people living within them.
Our Strategy reflects the importance we place on the impact of the social determinants of ill-health, including poverty, in the lives of those who depend upon us.