We care – our new way forward
Chief Executive Mairead McCormick

As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the NHS, I want to talk about our new five-year We care strategy, how proud I am of the achievements of our 5,000 plus colleagues during the past year and what the future looks like for community care.

I’ve seen so many positive changes in how we care since I started my career as a nurse nearly 35 years ago.

We now have the ability to deliver more complex care in the community than ever before – and with advancing technology there is so much more we can do.

Since joining #TeamKCHFT as the chief executive in July last year, I’ve witnessed this drive for innovation daily on my visits to services. The expansion of our virtual wards to treat more people with frailty and respiratory conditions over the past year, is just one example.

As we mark 75 years of the NHS, our task is to plot and deliver a future in which we preserve the key principles on which the service is founded; tackle the challenges ahead and embrace future opportunities.

What I’m really clear about is that we need to do some things differently in the years ahead if we are going to make the biggest breakthroughs in patient care and improve the working lives of our colleagues.

Our new, five-year We care strategy sets out four ambitions of how we plan to do just that based on what you – our patients, clients, service users, colleagues and partners – have told us is most important.

Our We care strategy 2023 to 2028

Our four big ambitions

Putting communities first – Everyone has the same chance to lead a healthy life, no matter who they are, or where they live.

We will focus on tackling health inequalities and preventing ill health. Our targets are to reduce did not attend and was not brought rates for appointments between patients living in the most and least deprived areas. We also know some people wait too long to be seen, so we want fewer people waiting longer than 12 weeks.

Better patient experience – Our conversations focus on what matters to the patient, so they get the right care, in the right place.

We know too often people end up in a hospital bed, when they don’t need to and stay too long, which can impact their ability to regain their independence. If our teams work better together across health and social care, providing seamless care with our voluntary sector partners, we think we can change this.

Our focus will be on rethinking the way we deliver recovery and rehabilitation – as we are one of nine national pilots – supporting more people at home through the development of integrated neighbourhood working (teams of health, social care and voluntary sector organisations) and re-thinking the design and condition of our community hospitals, so we are better set up to provide the most effective rehabilitation and recovery.

A great place to work – Our colleagues are valued, feel heard and make changes easily to deliver better care.

We want to make sure all colleagues look forward to coming to work, achieve their full potential and feel pride in a job well done. We want everyone to feel listened to, valued, safe and part of a team. We want to improve morale by reducing extra hours worked, develop a new approach to listening to colleagues so feedback is acted on, tackle issues of inequality in succession planning and raise up colleagues from unrepresented groups.

Sustainable care – We will live within our means to deliver outstanding care, in the right building, supported by technology, and reduce our carbon footprint.

We want our people to have everything they need to do their job well now and, in the future, and support them to spend more time on things that directly improve patient care. We know some of the places where we provide patient care from do not support effective or efficient rehabilitation and recovery.

We will work with partners to have one public estate, so our people can work in buildings that maximise the quality of care, provide good accessibility for patients and minimise our impact on the environment.

My 10 to 15-year view

If we get this right, I believe in 10 to 15 years, as an NHS we will be spending the highest percentage of our time on prevention.

The NHS will still be here when you need us, but we should be living in thriving communities, supporting each other to live a life where our interventions will only be necessary if it adds value and concentrating on what matters to you.

Want to know more?

Watch our short animation about our four ambitions.