Full screen

You have a choice of using an 'ordinary page', displaying the usual menus etc fomr the website

or

use a Body Only page that uses more of the screen, with no breadcrumb etc.

Our Trust objectives

Each year we review our objectives and update or add to them.

Our eight over-riding strategic objectives for 2007-2008 are listed below. There are principal objectives for each of these which you can see by clicking on the strategic objective.

• Deliver recurring financial sustainability
• Ensure the organisation can deliver high quality corporate governance, probity and assurance
• Develop our information and performance management to deliver strong governance and stability
• Develop our staff and organisation to deliver high quality services
• Deliver modern and sustainable services to users and carers
• Deliver safe services to users and carers and reduce the risk of harm to staff
• Deliver high quality services which meet core and developmental standards
• Deliver effective community engagement and partnerships

Performance

All NHS organisations in England are subject to an annual assessment process, called the Annual Health Check, which is performed by the Healthcare Commission (the Government’s regulator for NHS services).  The results of this year’s Annual Health Check were published on 18 October 2007.

The structure and rigour of this annual process are very useful for us as a framework for monitoring and improving our performance and the feedback from the Healthcare Commission is very welcome.

Our scores

There are two overall scores.

• Quality of Service is based on our actual performance against new and existing targets for mental health trusts, our self-assessed position against the NHS Standards for Better Health and themed Service Improvement Reviews.
• Use of Resources is based on compliance with Audit Commission standards for financial management and governance.

Our overall scores this year are:

These scores are unchanged from last year and are as we expected, although we had hoped to improve on our ‘fair’ score for quality of service.

Quality of service

Since last year’s Annual Health Check we have done a very significant amount of work to improve our performance, in particular in the areas highlighted by this process as areas for improvement. Although this work did not change our overall rating this year, we have made very encouraging progress against key targets and standards, and this puts us in a very good position to improve our overall score in the 2007/8 Annual Health Check. This improvement reflects well on the hard work and commitment of our staff across the Trust during the year.

Use of resources

We have made a huge strides in improving our financial management and use of resources. In particular our financial reporting and internal controls are highlighted as good by the Auditors. During 2006/7 we achieved in-year financial balance and we are on track to do the same in 2007/8.

However, we have debts that were incurred before 2003/4 and, because of this, we are automatically scored ‘weak’ for use of resources. We have already paid off a significant part of the debt and we are on track to finish paying it within the agreed timescale.

Today

Welcome the trust!

We are pleased to welcome the following on site:

• interview team

• Auditors from KPMG

• Mr David Long

• Ms Jane Friendly and Mr Allan Bennett