Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust’s (MPFT) September 2020 Board Meeting saw a Benefits Realisation report presented to the Board. The report demonstrates the benefits delivered to patients, service users, staff and members of the local community in the two years since the Trust was created.
When MPFT, which provides physical and mental health care, learning disability services, adult social care and a wide range of specialist services, was created in June 2018, the organisation was required to set out benefits it would bring.
The latest report demonstrates that of the original 55 benefited identified, 40 benefits have been realised within the first two years of the organisation been created.
Neil Carr, Chief Executive of MPFT said: “This is an important point of reflection and it is important to celebrate how through the provision of Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust all elements of health care – physical and mental – have come together with social care, to make a robust offer to the local communities we serve.”
Steve Grange, Executive Director of Strategy and Commercial Development added: “Two years ago the organisation set out to achieve one thing – an integrated, out of hospital offer to improve patient care. The measure of our success is that we are in a much better position than we were two years ago and we have been successful in what we set out to achieve.”
He added: “MPFT has been heralded as an example of national best practice for our post-merger integration plan not just for the structure, framework and strategy that we went through but also the cultural alignment of why we wanted to do this, and the way in which we supported our staff through the process.”
Remaining benefits are in progress and will be monitored by the Trust.
Highlights from past two years
- MPFT was rated ‘Good’ by the Care Quality Commission and in their report of July 2019 they said, “Staff knew and understood the trust’s vision and values and applied them to the work of their team… The Trust used a systematic approach to continually improve the quality of its services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care would flourish.”
- Since forming services across MPFT have been presented with a range of awards and accolades. https://www.mpft.nhs.uk/working-here/awards
- MPFT are proud members of the Positive Practice in Mental Health Collaborative and the Trust’s hospital avoidance programme was highly commended in their older people’s awards in 2019.
- The Trust has and continues to play a significant role in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent’s Sustainability and Transformation Partnership, Together We’re Better. Leading on transformation areas such as Enhanced Primary and Community Care and Workforce. In addition the Trust has developed services to support hospital avoidance including Home First, Community Rapid Intervention Service, Staying Well Clinics and the redesign of Long Term Conditions, which all support the ethos of providing care as close to a person’s home as possible.
- The Trust has further developed relationships with partners including primary care, acute care and social care, which have translated into tangible service development such a strategies to mobilise Primary Care Networks (PCNs), SMI prescribing in general practice and an adult social care academy to support advanced training of social care staff.
- MPFT has reduced duplication and enabled better care co-ordination. For example, service users who have severe mental illness (SMI) can now receive joint physical and mental health assessments, providing an holistic approach to overall physical and mental wellbeing.
- MPFT focuses on Quality Improvement (QI) and service transformation at an operational level. All staff are encouraged to consider QI in all aspects of their work, and to date approximately 2,000 staff have undertaken the QI ‘First Steps’ training programme.