People involvement at the core of Trust improvement journey
People with lived experience of mental health illness were able to engage and explain their vital contributions to Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) at its annual meeting yesterday (Tuesday 7 November).
The Annual General Meeting and Annual Members Meeting, held at The Mix in Stowmarket, also gave multiple Trust teams the chance to showcase improvement projects under way in a market stall area.
These included the multi-million pound Rivers Centre development at Hellesdon, Particip8 – a group that gives young people a voice in making improvements to the services they use, and the Healthwatch Serious Mental Illness (SMI) project – a collaborative which aims to ensure carers of those with serious mental illness are supported in their vital roles.
Throughout the vibrant and engaging event, which was attended by approximately 100 people, there was a buzz of appreciation, both for the projects delivering improvements at the Trust and from those involved in them.
Robyn Ward, Head of Carers Participation and Experience said "This event provided an excellent platform for our community to come together and engage in conversations about our shared goal: enhancing the quality of the services we offer, in collaboration with service users, carers and families.
“I want to say a huge thank you to all, our service users, carers and staff for their invaluable role in ensuring the success of the event, and to all those who invest their time in offering valuable feedback and working with us, to help us shape our services and support us with our improvement journey."
The formal AGM / AMM presentation element of the day gave new Chief Executive Caroline Donovan the chance to share her priorities for the future - improving health, quality of care, culture and staff experience and value.
The audience was also informed about the Trust’s Strategy for the future, which has been shaped with full involvement of staff and people who use the Trust’s services. One of these is Tracey Mayes who shared in a video how the experience had made her feel “honoured” and had led to her meeting “inspirational people” and “help other service users get across their stories and experiences”.
During the public question and answer session, the executive team shared clear commitment to further collaborative work with carers and to strengthening training for staff working with autism. Following positive feedback for the team in Suffolk from Suffolk User Forum, there was also the pledge of increasing physical health support in Norfolk.
To view the AGM / AMM papers and presentation, along with the video which features Tracey go to nsft.uk/AGM-2023