Introduction
We are in year three of our CNWL Strategy for 2022-25. When we wrote the strategy, it reflected the input of our service users and carers, staff, communities we serve and partners we work alongside. It responds to the challenges and opportunities we all still face today, and that we anticipated facing in years to come. It is a practical document, with a three-year programme of work we will only be able to deliver with the leadership of our staff, patients and partners.
We are in year three of our CNWL Strategy for 2022-25. When we wrote the strategy, it reflected the input of our service users and carers, staff, communities we serve and partners we work alongside. It responds to the challenges and opportunities we all still face today, and that we anticipate facing in years to come. It is a practical document, with a three-year programme of work we will only be able to deliver with the leadership of our staff, patients and partners.
In 2023, a joint chair was appointed across three of the mental health and community services Trusts in north west London – CNWL, Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust and West London NHS Trust. This has allowed the formation of a board in common to take forward our shared strategic agendas. This approach supports more collaborative decision making, and helps make sure we will make the most effective use of our collective resources to provide better care, for more people, more fairly.
Overtime, all three Trusts will start to develop a collective set of strategic intentions at the same time as maintaining our individual strategies. To support alignment, each of the CNWL principles from year 3 onwards, will include agreed priorities being overseen by the Board in Common.
Our CNWL Strategy for 2022-25
CNWL’s Strategy for 2022-25 is for everyone. Every member of staff should incorporate it into their daily work to ensure that we achieve our vision of “Wellbeing for Life”.
“Wellbeing for Life” applies to both our patients and our staff, with our ambition being great care for our patients and services and great people who work here and with us.
We are delivering this ambition through our “5,4,3,2,1” model which includes five practical, strategic priorities that will aid us in achieving our goal of improving the health and wellbeing of our patients. These include:
- Focus on excellent care – where we place our energy and how we ensure this is guided by how we best deliver excellent care
- Attract, include and retain at all levels – making CNWL a great place to work
- Strong local partnerships – a step change in how we work with communities and third sector
- Simple effective processes – making the right thing to do, the easy thing to do
- Digitally-enabled, data-driven – our digital and data infrastructure and literacy as a key enabler to the changes we want to make
The Strategy runs alongside our annual Operating Plan, delivering an agreed programme of work led by the Executive leads and monitored by the Trust Board.
Our focus in 2024: Year 3
Our deliverables and measures for 2024 still reflect the CNWL Strategy for 2022-25, with updates reflecting wider feedback from staff, patients and key partners.
An area of renewed focus this year is on ‘valuing the basics’, with an emphasis on getting our core fundamentals right, which support excellent CQC standards (safe, effective, caring, responsive, well led).
Our strategic principles
Principle meaning: A focus on where we place our energy and focus to deliver excellent healthcare services.
What are our priorities for Year 3?
- Launch and delivery of the Trust Clinical strategy
- Continue to embed SWEDE across the Trust
- Continue to embed PSIRF across the Trust
- Continued coproduction in all improvement work
- Implement the Quality Transformation Programme across all MH inpatient units
- Develop and roll out a plan for the implementation of outcome measures across all services Trust-wide
How are we going to deliver this?
- Keeping a relentless focus on delivering the highest quality services, supported by our Safety Strategy, QI approach and the adoption of human factors approach
- Ensuring that all our staff are enabled to consistently achieved core expectations on areas like training, induction, supervision and key management information
- Knowing when we can do more or do better working with partners and doing so really effectively
- Enabling all our people, including our leaders and wider system roles, to strike the right balance between internally and system focused work
Executive owners:
Dr Con Kelly, Chief Medical Officer and Helen Willetts, Chief Nurse
Principle meaning:
- Attract – We want to continue to attract new talent to the organisation and specifically staff from diverse backgrounds into senior roles
- Include – We want all our staff to be supported by their line managers, treated with respect, compassion and with fairness
- Retain – We want our staff to stay with us, to have long career and in particular ensure our BAME staff and those with other protected characteristics have the same opportunities to progress from lower to middle and middle to senior band roles
What are our priorities for year 3?
- Continued focus in recruitment and retention strategies
- Develop a focus on staff feeling supported by their managers
- Continue to embed the development of our leaders through the 21st Century Leadership Programme
- Use Staff Survey team level analysis to improve retention and staff experience at team level
- Action plan to improve Health and Wellbeing and Career Development particularly for under-represented staff
How are we going to deliver this?
- To develop a joint plan across divisions, clinical and corporate recruitment maturing the Trust's approach productivity and workforce planning across finance, operations and workforce
- We will maximise all recruitment opportunities locally, at trust level and run dedicated recruitment campaigns for critical professions
- We will use the best practice retention tool to help teams assess and improve what they do to retain staff
- Shape and focus the support of our 21st Century Leadership Programme to act as the umbrella for our management development programmes with dedicated executive steering and assurance, and an initial focus on key training competencies for 8A/8B bands. We will develop our SCARF approach
- Take a proactive approach using a sponsorship model to support the progression of our BAME staff from band 8a to band 8b and 8c roles while simultaneously supporting the progression of other groups of staff with protected characteristics. We will set ambitious model employer targets
Executive owners:
Nick Green, Interim Chief People Officer and Helen Willetts, Chief Nurse
Principle meaning: A step change in how we work with communities and third sector.
What are our priorities for year 3?
- Roll out new Population Health Management tool to inform planning, design and delivery of services
- Embed Improvement approaches:
- Align PCREF with Community Collaboration
- Report on how the Trust is tackling health Inequalities including key PCREF measures
- Systematic approach to partnerships:
- Increase Board level visibility of community and VCSE partnerships
- Refresh the Trust’s proposition as an anchor organisation and embed
How are we going to deliver this?
- Continue the development of the Community Collaboration Programme to systematise community engagement and involvement approaches and share good practice across the trust. Start to set formal place and service ambitions and targets now that the programme is established
- Build on existing third sector partnerships to create a substantial programme of grant funding in the third sector for 2022-23. Establish organisational oversight to ensure that funding is translated into long term services with clear measurement and sustainable benefits realised
Executive owners:
Ross Graves, Chief Strategy and Digital Officer (pictured left) and Graeme Caul, Chief Operating Officer (pictured right)
Principle meaning: Making the right things to do, the easy thing to do.
What are the priorities for year 3:
- Launch and embed the Employee Service Centre (Service Now) improving service efficiency and the staff experience
- Improved operational efficiency and productivity through improved staff deployment and resource management
- Implementation of CNWL’s Productivity Improvement programme which is linked to QI and has established reporting
How are we going to deliver this?
- Development of a process centre of excellence approach that brings together process re-engineering
- Digital expertise to support process change and standardisation on a rolling basis across the organisation
- Project team focusing initially on mapping and redesign of HR back office processes in support of People First Programme
- Clinical pathway optimisation approach focusing on the user-led redesign of SystmOne to better support clinicians to deliver care and at the same time improve the quality and consistency of our data
Executive owners:
Tom Shearer, Chief Finance Officer (pictured left) and Dr Con Kelly, Chief Medical Officer (pictured right)
Principle meaning: our digital and data infrastructure and literacy as a key enabler to the changes we want to make
What are the priorities for year 3:
- A core EPR optimisation and tailoring programme focused on increasing usability driving productivity, safety and quality improvement
- A discovery to establish and develop an approach to consolidating our technology and data assets aligned to business requirements ensuring we are leveraging our assets fully
- The implementation and increased use of patient engagement technologies providing a choice of digital access to services integrated into pathways
- Launch the Trust Digital Strategy 2024/27
- Digital strategy and programme “in common” across CNWL, CLCH, and WLT.
How are we going to deliver this?
- Following a refresh of our digital approach we recognise that technology and data is more ubiquitous than ever and will focus on 4 key pillars covering:
- Our People & Ways of Working
- Our Continuous Optimisation
- Our Foundations and Platforms
- Our Development & Innovations
- Through these pillars a focus on usability, use and experience will come to the fore aligned to achieving better outcomes for the people we serve.
- Working through the NWL Community and Mental Health Collaboratives as a lead partner in the system Digital Strategy.
Executive owners:
Ross Graves, Chief Strategy and Digital Officer (pictured left) and Tom Shearer, Chief Finance Officer (pictured right)
