It has been another busy week here at NELFT, especially for colleagues who are supporting our year end accounting and our annual reporting. I would like to thank everyone involved in this as I know there are very tight deadlines to work to. The end of one financial year and the start of another provides a chance to reflect and as I have been writing both my Annual Report and my Quality Account statements it gave me a chance to think about our many achievements over the past year. I am so proud that in the midst of responding to a global pandemic, colleagues have also been focused on increased collaboration and innovation for the benefit of our patients. Thank you!

As we move into the new financial year we invited Malcolm Young, our Executive Director of Finance, to talk with our senior leaders across the Trust about the financial context we are operating in and the complexities of the system we work within, especially as our commissioners prepare for their new Integrated Care System status in July 2022. The pandemic has put pressure on the NHS nationally and we are moving into a period of even more challenging financial pressures as demand for NHS services grow. It is really important that leaders across the Trust are aware of this as we work to deliver high quality, safe care.

It would be remiss of me to talk about finances without recognising the impacts of the increases in cost of living on colleagues and our local communities. It is something I have personally been discussing with our staff network chairs across NELFT and we have been reviewing at our Executive Management team. We are looking at options we can put in place to provide support to colleagues who may be facing hardship. Please do make use of our wellbeing services if this is an issue that is causing you any anxiety, and as always I know you will treat each other with kindness and compassion. Here is the link to KeepingWellNEL.

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting over 100 new colleagues who joined Team NELFT as part of our monthly Trust induction. I was heartened to hear about the skills, experience and values our new colleagues will be bringing to NELFT and it was also lovely to hear more about the reasons why people are choosing to work with us, not least the story that was about joining us for love. Our NELFT induction always inspires me and brings me joy, and I am always pleased to have so many of our leaders with me not only to hear the good things but to take forward the learning in order to continually improve.

I would like to thank all the colleagues and partners who have been involved in our Care Quality Commission (CQC) focused inspection of our Kent Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). I appreciate it can feel very pressured having our regulators inspecting our services and I want to say how proud I am of the way in which you have been handling the inspection. We anticipate the CQC will look to visit other services over the coming weeks and we are likely to receive notice of our Well-Led Review.

Finally, I would like to wish our colleagues and patients a very Happy Easter, we hope you all enjoy the bank holiday weekend.  We would also like to consider and support all of our colleagues and patients who are currently fasting for Ramadan, as well as wish a Happy Passover Holiday to all our Jewish colleagues and patients.  And to our Sikh colleagues and patients, a very Happy Vaisakhi.

Take care and stay safe.

Jacqui

Jacqui Van Rossum
Chief Executive (Acting)