This Strategy has been brought together over the past year using insight from a range of sources and following engagement with colleagues, partners and wider groups.
Engagement includes internal and external meetings and events; together with a dedicated website containing videos explaining the proposed strategic objectives and easy read downloadable materials.
Colleague engagement
100 teams took part in meetings with directors as part of wider #CWPCares ‘Thank You and Listening Events’ to gather views on the here and now (the present challenge) and future opportunities. Liverpool John Moore’s University analysed the feedback and summarised the following themes for the present challenge: ‘Working conditions’ related to the varied demands on colleagues’ time and the changing work environment; ‘Management and team support’ included colleagues’ reflections on how people worked together throughout the pandemic; and ‘Staff recruitment, retention and redeployment’ related to the impact of the pandemic on retaining staff, additional workload and its impact on wellbeing for colleagues and people who access services.
The themes colleagues identified as being important for the future were summarised as: ‘The future of hybrid working’; ‘Coproduction and joint working’ including colleagues’ reflections on opportunities for better partnership working; and ‘Staff Wellbeing vs Professional Responsibility’ relating to the balance needed between dedication to patient care and colleague wellbeing.
The Trust also took the conversation about Imagining the Future into its communities, with over 350 people attending 11 events including: joining Healthwatch Cheshire on its care community bus tour; attending mental health forums in East Cheshire, Crewe and Nantwich, and Cheshire West; visiting Wirral Change forum and the Wirral Bridge forum; and members of the Board holding a bespoke Cheshire Chat webinar coinciding with World Mental Health Day. In summary, external groups highlighted the importance of focusing on areas with the highest need to address health inequalities, promote wellbeing and prevention.
Widespread social media content reached over 39,000 people, with over 200 people actively engaging with posts and a further 2,300 people visiting the website. CWP Life, the Trust’s stakeholder magazine which is distributed to 12,000 members and a further 400 stakeholders featured an article on the new strategy seeking views - and health and social care partners supported promotion via their own publications and social media channels. Representatives from each of the three main ‘places’ that CWP operates in (Wirral, Cheshire West and Chester, and Cheshire East) also attended a dedicated Trust Board workshop on partnership working at Place.
A further 163 people responded to a dedicated e-survey. Liverpool John Moore’s University analysed the feedback and summarised the following suggestions for the future: ‘better partnership working between services’; ‘improve public and patient involvement’; ‘involvement of community groups, charities, police, academics/researchers, schools/universities’; ‘meaningful co-production’; ‘improve access irrespective of ethnicity, age, gender and sexuality’; ‘improve training’; and ‘focus on staff recruitment’.
Many of these conversations helped re-build existing relationships that had paused during the pandemic, or helped forge new relationships which will be fostered in order to grow. Feedback supports the new Strategy’s emphasis on partnership working, working with communities to co-design services, tackling inequalities and focusing on our people. More in-depth conversations with colleagues, people who access our services, carers and partners are already underway as part of the Trust’s transformation projects – for example the Community Wellbeing Alliance supporting community mental health redesign. We would like to thank everyone for taking the time to share their views, which will continue to shape our thinking as we implement the Strategy.