Chair and CEO message

We are pleased to introduce our Trust Strategy - Making a Difference (2026 - 2029), which sets out our shared ambitions and priorities for the next three years. We believe it establishes a clear direction of travel, which can truly make a difference to the lives of the people we care for, our colleagues and our communities.

The strategy is a bold vision of the future services we aim to develop, the quality of care we intend to provide, how we want to support our people and the new ways we will work with our partners and local communities. We are keen to start putting these plans into action, keeping people at the centre of everything we do.

Our strategy is focused on four pledges, which are:

• We put people first, caring for people as they wish to be treated, with patients, families and carers leading and shaping decisions.
• We join up care, working together locally to provide care and security to people in our communities.
• We support our people with the training, tools and compassionate leadership they need to do their best work.
• We use our resources wisely and responsibly to support people most in need at the right time.

A message from Mark Axcell, Chief Executive.

It was important to us that this strategy addressed the challenges and opportunities of today while remaining flexible so we can respond to any potential social and political changes over the next three years. The extensive feedback we've had from colleagues, patients and partners supported this.

The health and care needs of our communities are constantly evolving. Health inequalities, financial pressures and changing public expectations have all increased the demands on the Trust and this strategy seeks to address this.

It also gives us an opportunity to re-align our priorities to the Government's NHS 10 Year Plan, to focus on neighbourhood and local population health needs, and to embed the improvement programme activities we have already started implementing. You will see that it has a strong focus on population health and how we can work across our care groups, and the wider system, to integrate our services and provide more joined up patient-centred care.

Working together with our partners across the health and care system is paramount. Creating and building collaborative networks at all levels is going to be a vitally important element of how successful our strategy is. As we collectively further develop integrated neighbourhood working and teams, this is the time to set aside organisational boundaries. We must work together and put the needs of our people, patients and communities first, and we are committed to doing this.

We believe this strategy, supported by our transformation plans, will be a catalyst for positive change, benefiting our patients, colleagues and communities. We have no intention of simply moving on from the tragic events that impacted so many over the last few years. We will be open to, and take all the learning and recommendations from, the various reports and reviews, including the Nottingham Inquiry, to genuinely improve care, collaboration, information sharing and our services.

While we have faced major challenges, and rightfully had significant scrutiny, we also have many examples of our staff delivering fantastic, innovative work and are continuing to improve how we care for our patients and deliver our services. We have some great foundations, with many colleagues across the Trust providing great care, and this strategy will build on those successes at the same time as addressing the challenges we have talked about.

At its heart, our strategy is about people. It has been shaped by the voices and experiences of those who matter most - the people who use our services, our colleagues, our partners and the communities we serve. Throughout its development, we have listened to what matters most to them, learned from their experiences and used their feedback to develop our priorities for the future.

We want to provide better care for those who use our services, support our colleagues to do their best work, forge stronger partnerships, and help our neighbourhoods and communities to thrive. Our success will be measured by the difference we make to people's lives.

This is the time to do things differently, so we can truly make a positive difference to the lives of the people using our services, our colleagues and our wider communities.

Thank you for reading.