What's next

Carer, Family and Friend Strategic Plan

At our Carers Event in February, we asked carers and families to share what matters most to them. Their insights were invaluable, and we've used their feedback to develop six key commitments, listed below in the order of priority.

Our ambitions

1. Engage and support Carers and Families in all our services to enable us to provide safe, high-quality services for every individual in our care, and their loved ones.  
2. To enhance our organisational culture to be Carer and Family aware enabling improvements in what we do with Carers and Families as the driving force

Our strategic commitments for 2025/6 - We will:

 

1. Work in partnership with carers and families in the care and decisions relating to their loved ones:

• Supporting the delivery of person-centred care by encouraging carers to be involved in the discussions and decisions about the care and treatment pathways through our enhanced care planning approaches
• Have clear and easy to access information for what to do in an emergency for carers and families  
• Work with carers and families to refresh our Confidentiality Policy and operational approach

2. Listen and communicate with carers & families in an accessible, consistent and friendly manner:

• Ensure that carers have an opportunity to speak to a doctor, nurse, responsible clinician or other healthcare professional
• Promote mechanism for carers to share their experience of our care and share this transparently

3. Support carers and families to ensure they can access help to maintain their own health and wellbeing:

• Providing or signpost carers to appropriate information and support groups
• Refreshing the Trust website with up-to-date contact information, useful information about the Trust's services, and links to local and national Carers and Families support.
• Focus on supporting carers and families understand where they can access help and support where violent or aggressive behaviour within the home occurs to keep them safe and well  

4. Develop, support and train our staff to feel confident, equipped and skilled to work in partnership with carers and families:

• Providing staff with the right training, skills, system knowledge and support to best respond to the individual needs of carers and their loved ones (Carer awareness and EDI learning)
• Listening to, act on and learn from feedback from carers across the Trust to develop service improvements and service changes.  (Triangulate Patient Feedback, PALS and Complaints data to facilitate this learning).

5. Enable collaborations and participation with carers and families to innovate & coproduce services, improvements and policies that are inclusive:

• Being aware of all carers' needs and acknowledge carers themselves may require reasonable adjustments for involvement e.g. autism, dyslexia
• Developing specific involvement and participation activities for seldom heard communities

6. Innovate & collaborate with all health, social care and voluntary sector organisations to coordinate care and support for carers and families:

• Actively support involvement of Carers and Families in Trust strategic developments
• Working with the wider carers network of regional and national organisations to look at best practice and new approaches to be earlier adopted and innovators      

 

If you are interested in getting involved to help us build our carer strategy, please get in touch by emailing involvement@nottshc.nhs.uk.