North West England

Best Practice

Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Bringing healthcare closer to the home Allowing people to access healthcare closer to home is an important part of reducing inequalities. Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (CoCH) recognises this and is putting infrastructure in place to ensure this happens. A community diagnostic centre is being created at Ellesmere Port Hospital to enable patients to receive life-saving checks, scans and tests closer to their homes.

It is one of 100 community diagnostic centres backed by government investment launching across England, to make services more accessible and convenient for patients.

The Trust is also working in partnership with Tarporley War Memorial Hospital to renovate and develop the facility which specialises in inpatient, intermediate care of the elderly.

The hospital will become a rural hub for:

A rapid response team enabling people to receive care and rehabilitation in their own homes. REACT Hospital at Home Team enabling improved access to patients in crisis who might otherwise need to go to hospital to receive treatment in their home. Several outpatient clinics to include some consultant, diagnostic and therapy clinics normally run at Countess of Chester Hospital. Staff health and wellbeing CoCH is now placing more emphasis on the health and wellbeing of its own staff, through the implementation of a five-year People Strategy. Improving the support which is available for staff is a key aim over the next five years, in response to the impact of the pandemic.

The Trust has two designated wellness areas where staff can access support when needed.

Wellbeing and stress management, mindfulness courses, resilience sessions and counselling services are available to everyone working at The Countess of Chester Hospital, in addition to online tools.

Through a partnership with a neighbouring Trust, CoCH has also been trialling outreach psychological support for staff directly affected by Covid-19. Pilot initiatives included a peer support group and a one-to-one consultant psychotherapy assessment service for doctors, with plans to expand further to critical care staff.

Free virtual psychological wellbeing webinars covering resilience, mindfulness, sleep and understanding trauma were also made available.

Best Practice

Wellbeing and stress management, mindfulness courses, resilience sessions and counselling services are available to everyone working at The Countess of Chester Hospital, in addition to online tools.

Best Practice

Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust

Peer Support Workers At GMMH the peer support worker role provides opportunities for people with lived experience of mental health challenges. In the position, they use these experiences and empathy to support other people and their families receiving mental health services.

GMMH has these roles, and a dedicated training programme for them, mapped to the National Peer Support Competency Framework. It is also recognised by Health Education England as a training provider in this field.

The trust currently has 34 peer support workers in post and 40 volunteer peer mentors. It is also a member of the National Peer Support Worker Apprenticeship Trailblazer Group and is currently developing a new career pathway for peer support.

Activities to ensure fair career progression GMMH has bespoke, targeted leadership development opportunities for BAME, disabled and LGBT workers. A future leaders programme, for talented staff to access, has also been developed, alongside a framework of support for future career mapping, linked to succession planning and appraisals.

Additionally, activities have been introduced to help staff develop self-awareness about leadership behaviours.

Overall, the trust has a culture that empowers, enables and promotes learning and sharing. To develop the leaders that are crucial to its performance, and future, it has a number of measures in place to support fair progression of staff.

They include:

Holding regular forums for senior leaders to collaborate on areas of business across the trust.

Encouraging senior leaders to engage with other health and social care leaders.

Supporting new leaders through the allocation of a ‘buddy’ from a different area of the organisation to support the creation of lifelong networks.

Promoting and engaging in the work of the

NHS Leadership Academy and other organisations which support leadership skills and knowledge building.

GMMH has these roles, and a dedicated training programme for them, mapped to the National Peer Support Competency Framework. It is also recognised by Health Education England as a training provider in this field.