Trust Strategy 2021 – 2026

We formed in October 2019, following the merger of two strong, high performing NHS Trusts. We began co-producing this strategy with our colleagues, people who use our services, and through listening to our other stakeholders and partners by developing our Trust Values before our Trust was established. We commissioned an independent perception audit to hear the views and opinions of a wide range of our stakeholders, including the local authorities, local Primary Care Networks (PCNs) which are made up of local GPs, the voluntary sector, governors and members.

The overall view was that the newly formed Trust was in a great position to make a real impact and have a leading role in taking forward our health and care system in partnership with those who use it. Our development work was temporarily put on hold while our teams and services concentrated on responding to the Covid pandemic, but engagement picked up again at the beginning of 2021.

This strategy reflects what matters most to the people we’ve spoken to and sets out our ambitious but realistic plans for the next five years. In line with our values, we will continue to listen to and work in partnership with colleagues, patients, carers and our communities to ensure that we deliver ‘Better Care Together’.

We have considered the national and local challenges that we need to address and how we think we can best meet them. As such, we have identified four strategic aims:

• High Quality Care
• Better Health
• Great Place to Work
• Sustainability

Each strategic aim has an overall goal and a number of milestones beneath it.

Strategic Aim One: High Quality Care

We will deliver safe, effective, accessible services that meet individual needs. We will work with people who use our services, with carers, and with our colleagues to improve services through co-production, peer support and personalised care. We will constantly listen, innovate, and learn from others to ensure we deliver the best possible outcomes.

For the people who use our services, high quality care means receiving timely, safe and effective care, every time and as close to home as possible. Our Quality Strategy will set out the framework for driving further improvements to deliver High Quality Care.

Our goals are:

• The people who use our services and their carers report high levels of satisfaction and ‘being heard’
• We co-produce quality outcome measures that demonstrate good care
• We achieve an overall CQC rating of ‘Outstanding’

Our High Quality Care Objectives are to:

• Develop and embed our Quality Improvement approach to
  ensure continuous learning and improvement
• Develop our approach to co-production, personalisation, and the Triangle of Care
• Ensure robust quality assurance processes are in place,
  helping us to learn when we get things wrong and embed
  evidence-based practice

Strategic Aim Two: Better Health

Better Health means we will work together with people who use and work in our services to meet the needs of our diverse communities with services that are culturally sensitive and focus on early intervention and prevention.
We will be an active partner at both a locality and system level to tackle the root causes of health inequality and use information, evidence and experience to guide us.

Achieving Better Health and reducing health inequalities is not something we can achieve alone. It is influenced by many other factors such as housing and educational issues. We will continue to make the best use of our resources; providing interventions that have been proven to make a difference but we must also work with our system partners to deliver the priorities identified in both this strategy and those in the aligned Health and Wellbeing strategy.

We need to continue to find alternative ways to ensure we reach out to those communities that don’t access our services through our traditional routes and maximise access to all of our communities.

Our Goal is to ensure that we:

• Work in partnership with our communities to improve the health outcomes of those who are most disadvantaged

Our Better Health Objectives are to:

• Identify inequalities in our service delivery and develop targeted initiatives to improve them
• Further integrate our physical, mental health and learning disability services by working closely with partners to improve experience and outcomes
• Use Population Health Management and health data at a locality level to identify how people and communities can best be supported
• Implement the universal Personalised Care Model, the Peer Support Worker Model and develop a clear approach to co-production across our services

Strategic Aim Three: Great Place to Work

Our goal is to ensure that we have:

• A healthy and happy high-quality workforce, performing well in all local and national performance
  standards

Our Great Place to Work objectives are to:

• Focus on recruitment, retention and talent management at an individual and team level, working in
  partnership to secure our future workforce supply
• Invest in our health and wellbeing offers to ensure our colleagues are healthy, happy and that our
  workplace is safe
• Create an organisational culture that is welcoming, builds and celebrates inclusivity and diversity and
  provides a sense of belonging and trust
• Ensure our colleagues are heard, valued and influential in the organisation and wider system
• Promote flexible working, digital enablement and innovative roles that embrace new ways of working
• Work closely with system partners and education providers to optimise funding and training that enables
  workforce transformation

Strategic Aim Four: Sustainability

Our goal is to:

• Demonstrate that we are reducing our total carbon footprint

Our Sustainability Objectives are:

• Understand our baseline position in all aspects of sustainable development and set clear and
  measurable targets
• Take positive action to reduce our carbon footprint and improve air quality
• Take forward Digital by Design to transform our service delivery.
• Maximise our position as a major contributor to our local economy – promoting local, high quality employment opportunities and investment to add wider value across Gloucestershire

This strategy is ambitious and we recognise that there is much for us to do, but it is also measured and we will be realistic. We are confident that this strategy will help us achieve our vision and enable us to support people to live well.

We will deliver our strategy through our Enabling Strategies and a number of strategic programmes of work, which will focus on delivering our four strategic aims.