About Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust

Investing in leadership remains a key priority to ensure the delivery of high quality, safe and effective integrated services, with improved patient experience and outcomes. In a changing NHS landscape with increasing financial constraints, the organisation must remain in a strong position to respond to the challenges ahead. By motivating and engaging current leaders, and identifying and developing future leaders, this can be achieved. The Trust have held a series of five vibrant and thought provoking events. These included organisational development, understanding roles in achieving, maintaining and measuring success, and creating high performing teams with effective appraisals and motivated staff. They focused on ensuring patient safety and recovery remain at the heart of all they do and their individual and collective responsibility to ensure quality across services. They also equipped staff with the tools and techniques to ensure workforce resilience and well-being. The programme has provided an invaluable opportunity to build networks, share learning and gain an insight into the experiences of colleagues, service users, carers and partner organisations.

553 people attended the best ever Trust AGM and Annual Members’ Meeting on 24 July. The day was attended by staff, service users and carers, trust members and partner organisations, who were all eager to find out how the Trust had performed over the past 12 months and its plans for the coming year. Focusing on partnership working, the event illustrated the range and depth of achievement across mental health, physical health and integrated health. An interactive showcase opened the day, highlighting how involvement really does change services, culture and lives; something they are incredibly proud of at Nottinghamshire Healthcare. Over 80 exhibition stands demonstrated the way their services and partners are working together to develop and improve, to provide the very best care to their patients and service users. Five engaging and moving films showcased how they are doing this. This is the reality of working at Nottinghamshire Healthcare; staff do all they can, every day, to live up to the inspiring and memorable words in the NHS Constitution.

The Trust sees recognition and praise as an important reward mechanism, and as such they encourage all their managers and supervisors to encourage and praise excellent practice. They informally reward staff and teams, for example, managers verbally praise staff or send letters of thanks to staff who have performed well or have given excellent contributions. Annually they have the Outstanding Service Contribution and Recognition Scheme (OSCARS). The OSCARS is now in its tenth year and provides an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the outstanding work of teams and individuals in providing high quality mental health, learning disability, substance misuse and community health services. The OSCARS asks all staff, partners and people external to the organisation to nominate staff and teams for different awards. The CEO writes to all new members of staff welcoming them to the Trust, and then writes again three months later asking how they are doing, and if they have any comments or concerns. They encourage staff to gain recognition in external local and national awards and recently they were very pleased to find out that three colleagues won in the Nursing times awards (for learning disabilities and substance misuse).