Trust Matters August 2024 edition

Contents

Welcome from our Chair Kathryn Lavery

Welcome to the latest edition of Trust Matters which is packed full of the latest news from across our trust.

I can’t let this opportunity go by without talking about the deplorable violence and racist attacks we have seen across the country in our local communities, This has meant violent disorder, riots and racist behaviour, targeting places of worship, social media attacks, targeting families and their homes.

It is important that we make it clear how horrified we are at the senseless actions and the far-reaching impact it has had and continues to have. We will not tolerate this for our communities or for our colleagues.

We see this aggressive and racist behaviour as totally unacceptable and we want to collectively show strong leadership on this matter. It is important that we do not accept racism, and we tackle all forms of racism which are experienced in our own trust, in our communities, across the NHS and nationally.

In RDaSH we are rich as a trust, because of the diversity of backgrounds we come from as colleagues, and the diversity of patients, families and communities we work with. In fact, we want to encourage more people from diverse and different communities to be part of RDaSH because we know this will only make us better.

This connects to our Promise 26, in becoming an anti-racist organisation, as part of a wider commitment to fighting discrimination and positively promoting inclusion. I am pleased to see our work on acceptable behaviours taking a significant step forward and contributing to this promise.

Looking back to earlier in the summer, we held our annual members’ meeting and fun day in the fabulous Clifton Park, Rotherham. It was a fantastic day with around 3000 people coming out to join in the fun activities and talk to our teams and partners. I’d like to thank Rotherham’s Mayor Councillor Sheila Cowen who opened the day, the local community for letting us share their space and of course to our teams who made the day what it was. We’re looking forward to coming to North Lincolnshire next year to do it all again. We’ve been celebrating Pride as well as South Asian Heritage month throughout August. It was great to see Steve Forsyth, our chief nurse, lead the way in his video, sharing why South Asian Heritage month was set up and what it means to him.

The trust’s first learning half day is upon us, and I know lots of work has gone into designing the educational and professional development sessions. What an innovative investment for all our colleagues. I look forward to hearing more about the variety of activities.

As always please take care.

Kind regards,

Kathryn

If you’ve a story to tell let our Communications team know.

• Email: rdash.rdashcommunications@nhs.net
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Getting ready for the learning half days

With just days to go until the first trust-wide learning half day on Tuesday 3 September, we caught up with our North Lincolnshire colleagues to get their experiences and some top tips to help make your learning half day a success.

For those of you who are organising the learning half day for your service, team or area, here are some top tips from Alison Lopich, Development Support Officer who was the lead in setting up the sessions for the pilot.

Alison said: “Our pilot in North Lincolnshire included the whole care group, so my top tips are based on many colleagues across all specialities. However, I do hope that you find some of these tips useful for your learning half day.”

Here are some top tips:

• if you are organising the learning session for a big group of people, using a booking system like the staff portal to manage all the sessions and bookings was very useful
• co-ordination of the LEARN events is time consuming and proved challenging at times, so allow plenty of time
• consider interdependencies on other systems during the LEARN time, for example our first LEARN event clashed with payroll run so colleagues doing their eLearning found ESR slow and unresponsive at times
• use community venues as well as RDaSH venues
• work together with external agencies who are often very willing to come and talk to staff about the services they provide
• we listened to feedback from colleagues and adjusted our offer where we could

Here is some feedback from those who attended a LEARN event in North Lincolnshire:

• good to have the protected time to be able to prepare and complete revalidation work
• wanted to attend the managing difficult decisions session, but unfortunately there wasn’t any places available
• I think it would be helpful if either everything was online, or there was the option for every session to be held in each locality
• more admin-based learning would be helpful as a lot the training is directed at clinicians
• I think the LEARN event is great for finding time to complete mandatory training, but also for personal development, which ultimately has potential to help someone to perform better in their role

As well as the learning sessions in your team, there is also a range of training and MS Teams sessions to join in during the September learning half day. These are available on the staff app and intranet. These include Schwartz rounds, organisational development learning, introduction into research and innovation, and sensory training.

Future learning half days

• Tuesday 3 September from 1pm to 5pm.
• Thursday 10 October from 9am to 1pm.
• Wednesday 6 November from 1pm to 5pm.
• Thursday 12 December from 1pm to 5pm.
• Friday 24 January from 9am to 1pm.
• Thursday 13 February from 9am to 1pm.
• Wednesday 26 March from 1pm to 5pm.

Our commitment to acceptable behaviour

We know the unacceptable violent and racist events in so many parts of the country will be affecting many of our staff, service users and their families.

RDaSH is a place where everyone is valued and respected, racist behaviour and attitudes, in fact any form of discrimination, have no place here or in wider society.

One of our promises is to become an anti-racist organisation by 2025. Here we include a couple of examples of what colleagues have experienced. Our promise 26 is something that we are working towards in fighting discrimination and positively promoting inclusion.

We believe that people who use our services have a right to be heard, understood and respected. We work hard to be open and accessible to everyone and to provide a good service to everyone.

We also believe that our staff deserve to be treated fairly and with respect too.

We are working with RDaSH teams, our patient partners and partner services to finalise our acceptable behaviour policy which will be in place by the end of September 2024.

This has previously informally been known as the use of red cards. This type of approach is not new. You may have seen posters referencing this in accident and emergency departments for example.

What is it?

Although we have a positive relationship with most people who access our RDaSH services, and who we work in partnership with, there are some rare occasions where people interact with us in an unacceptable way. This includes behaving in a discriminatory or abusive nature. This affects our health and safety at work. This policy will provide an easy-to-follow framework and guidance for all people in the organisation who could be exposed to aggressive, threatening and discriminatory behaviours, so that they are better supported and equipped to avoid and minimise the risks of such behaviours.

How will it help?

Abusive, discriminatory, or antisocial behaviour by any person is not acceptable. However, given the broad range of services we provide and the diverse nature of the people we engage with, each and every situation would need to be assessed on an individual basis to ensure the effective management and prevention of such behaviours towards trust staff members.

Focus on a Greener NHS

During the month of September, we’re shining a light on our RDaSH green champions as part of NHS England’s North East and Yorkshire month-long focus on the regional NHS Greener commitment.

This is a month of acknowledging and sharing the progress the NHS across the region has made over the last three and a half years since becoming the world’s first health service to commit to reaching net zero carbon emissions. You’ll find examples of our actions, as part of our promise 27, throughout Trust Matters.

Governor elections

Thank you to everyone who has put forward nominations for this round of staff governor elections.

We will let you know the outcome and whether we will be holding elections in any of the staff governor categories. Successful staff governors will take up their seats on 7 October.

We will be shortly starting the process for forthcoming elections for public and patient governors and will be announcing the launch date in September.

There are no special qualifications to become a governor, just enthusiasm, a desire to help shape care and dedicate a small portion of their time. Anyone who is aged 16 or over and a registered member of RDaSH can put themselves for the role. All the necessary training and support for those elected governors will be provided.

If you know of anyone who would be interested in being a governor, then please let them know about these elections.

To find out more please contact Sue Black on:

• Phone: 07929 656113
• Email: susan.black13@nhs.net
• MS Teams

Our Care Opinion journey so far

The roll-out of Care Opinion is on track with many RDaSH services now offering this way of feeding back.

Care Opinion is now the main route for collecting feedback for people’s experience of services. It will help people share their stories, and services can respond, in a timelier way. It’s at the heart our promise 4 to ‘make a difference to the shape and quality of our services’ in a visible and transparent way.

Watch a short video about care opinion (opens in new window).

The communications team and print services have been developing Care Opinion branded, engaging materials for the trust which includes posters and bookmarks. All QR codes are being used on promotional material, both trust wide and service specific, and will include the family and friends test at the beginning of the feedback experience.

We currently have over 160 responders set up across the trust, with over 75 services established with unique QR codes to offer feedback and, over 10 stories told using these unique links.

Your Opinion Counts (YOC) for adult services will stop at the beginning of September 2024 and any legacy YOCs in the system will be put onto Care Opinion.

Please note that YOCs in adult services will not be processed, moving forward in September 2024, once they are live on Care Opinion and have their materials provided by print services (with a DP number) for future orders.

For more information about the use or mobilisation of Care Opinion, please contact Stuart Green on:

• Email: stuart.green4@nhs.net

The Children’s Care group will be using Care Opinion during September 2024 with a go live date of Tuesday 1 October 2024.

For more information, Please contact Leana Gater on:

• Email: l.gater@nhs.net

Sharing our 28 promises progress

We had a fantastic fun day and annual members’ meeting at Rotherham’s Clifton Park back in July.

The event was opened by Rotherham’s Mayor Councillor Sheila Cowen as she joined around 3000 people who turned out to enjoy the activities, browse the many stalls, and meet our colleagues.

Well done to all the It’s a Knockout and rounders teams who put their all into making it such a fun event.

On the day we also shared our look back on 2023 to 2024 and took the opportunity to report on the progress we have made since we launched our 28 promises back in October 2023.

The report outlines the success measures for our promises, provides an easy read summary of the strategy, and offers an honest assessment of work done in the few months since the strategy was launched.

You can read the full promises progress report, alongside our annual report and annual quality report on the RDaSH website.

In 2025 our annual reports will be accompanied by a peer-led report on our progress, supported by those members of our local communities who have now agreed to join the decision-making groups within the trust’s leadership

All pictures from our fun day (opens in new window).

North Lincolnshire

Improving the spaces at Great Oaks

Plans to improve the physical environment for patients, colleagues and visitors at Great Oaks in Scunthorpe have been revealed.

The inpatient unit which provides care and treatment for adults living with mental health problems is set to benefit from an extensive improvement works to its wards, office areas and reception spaces.

The redevelopment, which is due to start later this year, will involve adding two new bedrooms on Mulberry ward bringing the number of inpatient beds to 19. There will also be improvements to patient areas including new multi faith spaces, new calm sensory spaces for patients and also improved space for visitors and families. A crisis assessment centre will be created to provide care to those who are in a mental health crisis as an alternative to attending the emergency department. At the same time, the current Section 136 suite will be moved to a new location on the Great Oaks site which will also enable changes to be made to the environment focussed on improving patient experience.

Improvements to colleague areas will include having onsite on-call room for doctors, multi use spaces, improved restrooms, changing facilities and outside areas enhancing the working environment for colleagues.

Louisa Redhead, Continuous Service Improvement Lead who is leading the project, said: “We are very excited about these new improvement plans which will enhance the quality of care we provide to our patients and give our colleagues much improved working areas.”

Supporting people into work

Here is a great example of how our services really make a big difference to people’s lives.

James Richardson, employment specialist in North Lincolnshire shares this good news story with us. James explains: “When I met Edna a year ago, she had not worked for over 12 months due to mental ill health requiring inpatient care and had been referred to the early intervention psychosis team.

“She had previously worked as a cleaner for an agency and as a kitchen assistant at a local school but lost this job when she became ill and went into hospital.

“She had an issue with her shoulder so could not go back to cleaning and was not quite ready to return to work immediately. Her mental health was improving, and she was referred to employment services for support preparing for work to help with the recovery process.”

James, pictured, went on to describe how Edna wanted to improve her English so he supported her to sign up for an English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) course. She started at North Lindsey College in September and is completing her first year.

James worked with Edna on her CV and looked at her options. They also focused on interview questions and Edna prepared some answers to common questions.

He describes how Edna went on to find success in a new role: “Edna has found a job as a kitchen assistant after being able to do the interview over the phone with an employment specialist present offering support and prompting her answers.

“The Employment Services team also arranged the rental of an electric bike from Wheels2Work. Edna has now settled into her new job and after three years has been discharged from the community Mental Health team.”

Green news in North Lincolnshire

Thank you to our Green Champions Martin Jones, Jo Baker and Hannah Needham based in North Lincolnshire who have shared just a couple of great ways they are making a difference and doing their bit towards promise 27.

Planting trees

Back in a cold February our North Lincolnshire community took a big step towards a greener future. Colleagues, patients, and their families joined forces to plant 300 bare root trees. This fun and rewarding activity not only helped beautify our surroundings but also showed commitment to making a positive environmental impact.

Switching to wooden stirrers and spoons

In our efforts to reduce plastic waste, we are replacing plastic stirrers and spoons with wooden ones. Plastic is harmful to the environment, and by switching to wooden options, we are making a small but significant change. Wooden stirrers and spoons are biodegradable, meaning they break down naturally without harming the planet.

Celebrating Scunthorpe Pride

We’ve been flying the RDaSH flag at Scunthorpe Pride. It’s only the second year of running and this year saw the introduction of a parade on foot filling the town centre with colour and cheer.

National speaker heads for leaders’ conference

Professor Bola Owolabi (MRCGP, MFPH Hon, FRSPH), Director of the National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme at NHS England, will be heading to RDaSH in September as she joins our leaders’ conference at Magna.

Bola has a particular interest in reducing healthcare inequalities through integrated care models, service transformation, and using data insights for quality improvement. She has spearheaded NHS England’s Core20PLUS5.

This approach focuses support on the most deprived ‘Core 20’ percent of the population, ‘plus’ other underserved groups identified through local population health data (such as communities with minority ethnicity), and targets ‘5’ key clinical areas for priority improvement. Versions of the Core20PLUS5 approach are in place for both adults and children and young people.

We are looking forward to welcoming Bola as we spend the day developing and reviewing our own work to narrow health inequalities.

South Asian Heritage month

We’ve been marking South Asian Heritage month with a series of events and activities across the trust. Steve Forsyth, Chief Nurse at RDaSH launched the month.

South Asian Heritage Month commemorates, marks and celebrates South Asian cultures, histories, and communities. It first took place in 2020 and runs from July 18 to August 17 each year. The month seeks to understand the diverse heritage and cultures that continue to link the UK with South Asia.

It’s a beautiful display of the rich and proud South Asian heritage that has blended into the British way of life, contributing to the diversity of our nation. Observing South Asian Heritage Month provides us with an excellent chance to embrace and celebrate the history and identity of British South Asians.

Watch Steve talking about South Asian Heritage Month (opens in new window).

Our flu vaccination campaign starts in two weeks

We are on count down to the start of this year’s staff flu vaccination campaign.

In the last flu vaccination campaign, we were the 8th best in the country with 88.56% of you taking up the offer of the free flu vaccine. With your help we want to do even better.

The flu vaccines will be arriving at our sites during the week of 16 September. As soon as they arrive, our staff flu vaccination campaign will begin.

Bookings will be opening on the staff portal very soon. Keep checking the portal and the app or intranet for when to book your flu vaccine.

As last year we had lots of roving availability, we had added in planned clinics for those who find them easier to access, they will be available across all areas within the trust. Our aim is to make it as easy as possible for you to have your flu vaccine.

Booking is easy and quick on the staff portal:

• go to the staff portal link the intranet
• enter your login details as you would for your laptop or computer go to “online booking” and select “flu vaccination 2024”
• then choose your preferred appointment

We know that not all of you are able to get onto the staff portal, especially colleagues who work in estates and facilities, so planned clinic sessions will be shared with your line managers to share with you all. They will also be available in your work bases.

Steve Forsyth, Chief Nurse, said: “We have contact with some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. This is why it is vital that we take up the offer of the free flu vaccine. By having the vaccine means that we protect each other and keep our services running. It will reduce the risk of spreading flu viruses to our patients and the people who use our services.

“Many of you may have family or friends who are in at-risk groups who potentially could have a serious health problem from flu. Please make every effort to have your flu vaccine this year.”

Dr Diarmid Sinclair, Deputy Medical Director, said: “Flu is an unpredictable virus which can have very serious consequences especially for those who have underlying health conditions. Being healthy doesn’t reduce your risk of getting flu or passing it on. You can have flu without any symptoms and pass it on to family, friends, colleagues and patients, many of whom may be at increased risk from flu. I strongly urge you to have the flu vaccine at your earliest opportunity.”

As a thank you for having your flu vaccine, we will be holding a prize draw every week in each care group and corporate directorate.

The prizes will be £50 for the first five weeks, then £25 for the next three weeks, moving to £10 and £5 towards the end of our vaccination campaign.

Everyone who has their flu vaccine will be entered in all the draws so the sooner you have your vaccine the more chances of winning.

For our flu vaccinators, we will also have the following cash prizes as a thank you for going above and beyond and giving your time to vaccinate trust colleagues.

First prize for vaccinating the most colleagues is £75, second prize is £50, and third prize is £25.

Here are some myth busters

• Flu is just a heavy cold: Flu and colds are different. Flu lasts longer and causes more severe symptoms, even worse than a heavy cold. While there is no vaccination against colds, the flu vaccination is very effective.
• Influenza is not dangerous: For most people flu is an unpleasant illness, but it can result in chest infections, pneumonia, severe complications and death.
• I am fit and healthy so I don’t need the vaccination: Healthy people can develop severe complications from flu. It is possible to carry and pass the virus onto others without having any symptoms.
• Flu is only caught from coughs and sneezes: In addition to coughs and sneezes, colds and flu are caught through hand contact. Equipment and hard surfaces can easily become contaminated. The virus can then be passed on through direct or indirect contact with these items. Regularly decontaminating your hands will help to stop the spread of infection.
• Flu can be treated with antibiotics: Antibiotics only fight bacteria. There’s no equivalent medication for cold and flu viruses. The only medications that may help simply treat the symptoms of colds or flu. For example, antivirals can shorten the duration of flu, paracetamol can reduce fever or decongestants may help a runny nose.
• The infection control practices at my workplace are sufficient: Although good infection prevention and control practices are encouraged, they alone will not be sufficient to prevent influenza infection.
• I had the vaccination last year so don’t need it again: The vaccine for seasonal flu can change each year. This is why you need the flu vaccine to protect against circulating strains of the virus. The vaccine administered last year might not protect against flu this year.
• The flu vaccine can give you the flu: There are several types of injected flu vaccine. None of them contain live viruses so they cannot give you flu. It can take up to 15 days for full immunity and during that time you can still get flu.

Watch our flu vaccine video (opens in new window).

Summer family day at Tickhill

We showed our appreciation to our internationally educated and highly experienced colleagues for choosing to join us here at our trust.

The celebration event was an opportunity for them to meet up, have fun, share ideas and experiences.

Rotherham

NHS volunteering roadshow a success

More than 50 people from across Rotherham were welcomed through the doors of Riverside House in July for the volunteering roadshow, with 32 people signing up to become volunteers.

The successful event showcased the volunteering, recruitment and apprenticeship opportunities here at RDaSH.

Specialists from our volunteering, apprenticeship and recruitment teams were joined by South Yorkshire Housing Association, Department of Work and Pensions, and Employment Solutions.

Those attending were able to listen to short presentations and chat to our staff about the range of volunteering, apprenticeship and recruitment roles on offer.

Stuart Green, Patient Experience and Involvement Lead, said: “We have over 20 volunteer roles in Rotherham which are available and had a brilliant response. As an organisation we value everything that our volunteers do for the people who use our services and hope that Rotherham people will choose to volunteer with us.”

Julie Thornton, Director for our Rotherham Services, said: “Thank you to everyone who came along to our roadshow. We have new and exciting volunteering roles in Rotherham.

For those looking for a job were able to chat to our Recruitment team about the jobs we have and reminded people that volunteering can lead to employment.”

If you would like more information about volunteering or working with us, please contact via:

• Phone: 03000 0211547
• Email: rdash.volunteers@nhs.net

Collaborative working

Colleagues from our Rotherham mental health hospital liaison team older adults’ nurses are doing their bit to support those who are caring for people living with dementia.

The team has joined forces with Making Space Dementia Service and holding an information stall in the main entrance of Rotherham Hospital. Call in and have a chat with them on Monday 23 September between 10am and 12:30pm.

Celebrating Pride Rotherham

Rotherham was the first place across RDaSH to celebrate Pride back in June. The town had a big re-launch after a five-year break with over 2000 attending the great event.

Celebrating reaching the top

A trust team is celebrating achieving a top-level rating in a national annual mental health audit.

Rotherham’s Early Intervention in Psychosis team secured level 4 in the 2023 to 2024 National Clinical Audit of Psychosis (NCAP).

Based at Swallownest Court, they are one of only 10 teams across the NHS’s North East and Yorkshire Region to reach the highest level, a standard also achieved this year by our Early Intervention teams in Doncaster and North Lincolnshire.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has been running the audit for the NHS since 2017 to help improve the quality of care and develop early intervention services. The audit measures those services against criteria relating to the care and treatment they provide.

The Rotherham team work with patients who have had a first episode psychosis, a term used to describe those who may be experiencing symptoms such as hearing voices that others cannot hear, or may think there is a plot to harm them and feel worried or suspicious about people around them. The condition affects around one in every 100 people in the country.

The team worked hard to lift their rating from the previous year’s level 2. Team manager Lorna Goodyear said: “We are particularly pleased at our significant improvement in the uptake of family interventions, achieving 40 per cent this year compared to 2.6 per cent last year, which was helped by embedding a family intervention lead into the service as part of a quality improvement programme, alongside the hard work of the team to drive this intervention.

“We also scored very highly for the impact we have made helping carers to take up education and support programmes that are designed to assist them. The assessors also recognised the efforts that we have successfully made to enable people with a first episode psychosis to have a full physical health check after they had been on the caseload for six months or more.”

Service Manager Nicola Bonser said: “Getting to Level 4 is a fantastic achievement and our patients are really benefiting. Extensive research shows that receiving treatment with early intervention leads to improved outcomes, including a reduction in relapse and hospital admission. Crucially, it also reduces suicide risk and improves family wellbeing.”

Feedback from a Rotherham patient

“I just want to say thanks for the genuine and diligent support and care I have received over the past few years and at some of the worst moments in my life. I really lost hope in people and your team have really helped me find my resilience, love for myself my life and restored my faith that good people exist. Thank you guys for being kind people and not abusing your job positions… that’s really stood out to me your professionalism but you still treat me like a human. My family and I will never forget this life-changing experience. We have grown so much in a world where people like us are just forgotten. You guys have been a Godsend, I will be eternally grateful!

Poverty proofing

One of our promises is to ‘poverty proof all our services by 2025, to tackle discrimination, including digital exclusion’. Poverty proofing is about removing the financial barriers from a person’s ability to access the healthcare that they need. These barriers could be unaffordability of transport to get to appointments, not able to pay for prescriptions or treatment, lack of empowerment or inaccessibility to digital devices to book appointment.

Currently around one in five people in the UK are living in poverty.

We provide services in South Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire where levels of poverty are higher than the national average. The poverty line is defined as a household income of less than 60% of the median income which is currently £32,000 per year in the UK.

In our geographical areas:

• around 40% of Doncaster’s population live in the 20% of most deprived areas nationally
• around 20% of North Lincolnshire’s population live in the 20% of most deprived areas nationally
• around 37% of Rotherham’s population live in the 20% of most deprived areas nationally

To help us to deliver on this promise, we are working in partnership with Children’s Northeast (CNE) a Newcastle Upon Tyne based charity that has devised a programme called Poverty Proofing. CNE first started working with schools and now includes arts and cultural venues, leisure centres, early years settings and healthcare settings.

The programme for delivering our promise will involve:

1. training, staff will receive training, to gain an awareness and understanding about poverty. This will help improve knowledge as to why it’s hard to look after your health when you have little or no money
2. consultation, this will involve talking to patients, their families, carers and staff. This is because it is their experiences and views that help us understand what works and what needs to be changed
3. scoping, this would involve looking at policies and procedures in the settings that are likely to affect or be affected by the poverty proofing process
4. feedback and report, feedback will be provided after the consultation which will detail what could be changed to make things more welcoming and easier for people, financially
5. review, after 6 to 12 months we will go back to the service and carry out a post-programme audit to identify the scale of any improvements

CNE began work with three of our pilot services on 28 June 2024. These are Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in North Lincolnshire, Podiatry in Doncaster and Early Interventions in Rotherham. CNE will lead the way on these three services, while at the same time provide 14 of our colleagues the opportunity to shadow and gain knowledge. The 14 staff will also receive poverty proofing training so that they can support other services with poverty proofing throughout the year.

Promise 6 aims to deliver all our services to be poverty proofed by 2025. To have a sustained reduction in service attendance gap (7%) in lower decile neighbourhoods and provide signposting to benefits and debt advice routinely as part of our offering to tackle the claims gap.

We will also work with other organisations such as Citizens Advice Bureau to make sure patients have access to welfare rights and benefits advice across all our three places.

To know more about this promise, please email Steph Pinnell or Tinashe Mahaso at:

• Email: steph.pinnell@nhs.net
• Email: tinashe.mahaso@nhs.net

Trust partners with local schools and colleges to launch T levels

Our placement learning team has been working with local schools and colleges to develop T Level qualifications for our trust.

T-levels are an alternative to A-levels and apprenticeships and are for young people aged from 16 to 19 years old. They offer students practical and knowledge based learning while at school or college with on the job experience.

The T-level itself is a two-year course with the student spending one day a week on placement during term time with us in specific services across our trust. This is in keeping with promise 24 of improving our educational offer and supporting existing and new roles in our services teams.

Kay Keeton, Placement Learning Facilitator, said: “We are very excited to be working together with schools and colleges to offer T-levels to their students. These courses are very new and give young people the chance to discover what the NHS has to offer and hopefully inspire them to have a career in the NHS.”

At the moment we are doing T-level health with placements within our Home First services.

Celebrating success at the recovery games

The date is set for this year’s Recovery Games.

An annual celebration of the achievements of people who are in recovery from a drug or alcohol addiction.

The Recovery Games is a free community event and is being held on Saturday 14 September between 10am and 5pm at Hatfield Outdoor Activity Centre, Old Thorne Road, Doncaster, DN7 6EQ.

There will be lots of fun activities for all the family including circus skills workshops, children’s inflatable play park and treasure hunt. Live music by Flip n Fill and Kelly Llorenna performing their hits including ‘Field of dreams’ and ‘Set you free’. Star Wars cosplay group Mos Eisley Misfits will be mixing with the crowds.

There’s also plenty of live action to entertain visitors by supporting teams competing in giant It’s a Knockout and gladiator style obstacle courses on the lake and on land. Visitors can also try one of the Recovery Games challenges and take part in the exciting colour festival.

Neil Firbank, from RDaSH, said: “The Recovery Games is very much a family fun day. We know the impact that addiction has on families and communities. These games give us all a chance to celebrate that there is a way out of addiction and that recovery is possible with the right support in place.”

Tim Young, Chief Executive of the Alcohol and Drug Service, said: “Many of the people taking part in the games have achieved so much and are duly proud of their achievements. There are lots of benefits of recovery, both for the person themselves and for those around them. These games are a fantastic reminder of that.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing drug or alcohol issues and want to talk to someone in confidence, please call 03000 213900.

Watch the recovery games video (opens in new window).

Doncaster

Virtual ward supports more than 1000 people

Over 1000 people have now used the Home First virtual ward service.

Virtual wards, which are an extension of hospital services and happen in patients’ homes, are run in partnership by RDaSH and Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals under the Home First service.

Following the success and learning from the roll-out in Doncaster, we are currently working with care home colleagues across Rotherham and North Lincolnshire to optimise the support we are able to offer there too.

Frank Jackson from Askern went under the care of a “virtual ward” in his own home, he says it most likely saved his life.

“After tests at Doncaster Royal Infirmary, I was allowed home the following day and placed on a virtual ward. The big advantage for me was that I wasn’t admitted to hospital. I could come home and be in my own environment and the nurses came to me. I could not have wished for better nurses to visit me.”

Aspire peer mentor graduation

Congratulations to our volunteer peer mentors who graduated in July.

Peer mentors play a vital role in offering support and advice to those who are in recovery from a drug or alcohol addiction. They are a key element of promises 1 and 3.

They also celebrated those who had finished the 22-week abstinent based structured day programme.

Doncaster man leaves vital hepatitis C legacy

Doncaster man Neil Batten dedicated his life to promoting the awareness of Hepatitis C and the importance of getting tested and treated.

Neil, who was diagnosed himself later in his life, sadly died this year from liver cancer due to the damage caused by hepatitis C. He was able to tell his story in a short film by the Hepatitis C Trust as he was nearing the end of his life.

RDaSH hepatitis C specialist nurse Sheena Emerson has been sharing Neil’s film to spread his message and raise awareness in an attempt to remove the stigma that can come with this virus.

The film has been completed in loving memory of Neil. His family has given their full blessing for this film to be shared in the hope others will get tested and be cured of daughter Madison said: “I don’t want anyone else to be in the position I am now following the loss of my dad.”

Sheena: “This is a really personal story for me. I was Neil’s nurse when he was diagnosed back in 2016. Like many people who have the virus, he had no idea he’d been living with it for many years. When he came to our service we were able to treat the virus successfully.

Unfortunately, even though Neil’s hepatitis C was cured, there was already lasting damage to his liver and he went on to develop liver cancer.”

Neil tells us in the film how he felt when he got the diagnosis: “At first I was really angry, I wanted somebody else to blame, you know, it couldn’t possibly be me. If I’d had this for all these years surely I would have known.

“I then moved on to ‘How could this have happened?’ The realisation was, I’d caught this in the nineties in injected drugs. My thoughts were how can this have happened. It’s nearly twenty odd years later and I’m only just finding out.”

Neil’s next thought was: “I have somehow got to help stop this happening to someone else.”

This realisation motivated Neil to raise awareness of the virus and the impact it can have. He became a mentor at Aspire in Doncaster and went on to volunteer, and then work, for the Hepatitis C Trust, working in the Prison team, a job that he really loved.

Following his diagnosis, Neil spent a large proportion of his later years dedicated to helping others to get tested, and treated, and this film is his way of continuing that work.

By sharing Neil’s message, Sheena hopes that his legacy will continue: “It’s a simple test, just a prick of the finger. The results are available quickly and if you need treatment we start helping people straight away. Treatment is by tablet which you take for two to three months.”

“Often people don’t want to talk about Hepatitis C and we’re trying to change that. I think Neil is extremely brave and inspirational to do the video at that time of his life. It’s a credit to him and all that he was doing to help others.”

Testing is available at GPs, sexual health clinics, genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinics or drug treatment services also offer testing for Hepatitis C. For more information visit the NHS UK website (opens in new window) or get in touch with the RDaSH Hepatitis C team in Doncaster.

Neil’s family would like to thank St John’s Hospice in Doncaster for the care Neil received in the last few days of his life.

UK Pride comes to Doncaster

Doncaster played host to UK Pride this year and we were there to proudly fly the RDaSH flag. Every year Pride organisers up and down the country select one Pride to be the UK Pride of that year.

Our teams were there to walk the parade and then head back to the event site to represent the NHS and talk to people about our services.

Lindsay Smithson from our With Me In Mind team told us why joining Pride matters: “This is our second time at Pride, every year we meet amazing people supporting all diverse communities. In our schools we continue to promote diversity and raise mental health awareness supporting all communities. Pride celebrates and challenges change, whilst continuing to support children and young people in our area. We look forward to attending many more wonderful events and will continue to support our LGBTQ+ community”

See all pictures on the UK Pride Doncaster (opens in new window)

Inclusive cultures reciprocal partnership programme

Many of our colleagues received their certificates of achievement having taken part in the South Yorkshire Inclusive Cultures reciprocal mentoring programme.

Reverse or reciprocal mentoring turns the traditional mentoring model on its head. This programme matches an established leader with an aspiring leader, giving them the opportunity to maximise their presence and impact in helping to create a more diverse and inclusive leadership and culture.

The Inclusive Cultures Partnership Programme offers the opportunity to be part of a powerful movement for change in building a more diverse and inclusive culture across the South Yorkshire Integrated Care System.

Thank you and well done to everyone who took part in this mentoring programme to support equality, diversity and inclusion in our organisation and across the integrated care system.

Going the Extra Mile (GEMs)

Well done to our Going the Extra Mile (GEM) award winners. Thank you for going the extra mile for our patients, colleagues, and the service we provide. The GEM awards were presented by Philip Gowland, Director of Corporate Assurance and Board Secretary. Well done everyone.

See all pictures of the event (opens in new window)

Feedback from a patient

It boosts our morale when we receive feedback from our patients. Here are some lovely comments from one of our patients.

A patient who was under the care of our Dietetic service has given some wonderful feedback for Specialist Dietitian Habiba Al-Muwakkat.

The patient said: “I started losing weight due to the treatment I was having for cancer. I did try to eat, but the treatment made it so I couldn’t. It was a worrying time for me but from the moment I was referred into the Dietetics service and spoke to Habiba, I felt reassured.

“She gave me lots of good sound advice and information. She recommended milkshakes and dried fruit which would help me put on weight. She was very understanding. She listened and acknowledged me in a nice, calm way which was very reassuring. Thanks to her, I have now gained weight and I still follow her advice and helping another member of my family who is poorly.

“I want to say a big thank you to Habiba for listening and encouraging me to keep positive and try new things. Thank you.”

Learning spiritual care and the work of chaplains

The Learning and Development department and Chaplaincy team are supporting students on placements at RDaSH.

Student nurses, physiotherapists and social care workers learn about the significance of having a chaplain visit patients, who understands the concepts of faith and culture during a patients journey at RDaSH. Exploring themes of spiritual and chaplaincy support during end of life care, learning about spiritual assessment and wellbeing.

The sessions are interactive and a display of some of our religious material evokes in depth conversations.

What happens to our food waste?

Food waste has been in and out of the news for a number of years, I’m sure many of you have seen the “fatbergs” that cause daily blockages in our sewers.

Food waste has been a big problem for many years and much of it still ends up in landfill sites today. It’s smelly, can cause health problems and attracts a lot of vermin.

Thankfully at RDaSH none of our waste ends up in landfill, but we could do better in segregating.

The trust started using ReFood to collect its food waste in 2012, in that time the amount of food waste has increased, some of that increase is down to actual measurements where food waste used to be put down the drains, through macerators, these were all removed from trust premises by the end of 2015.

Annually the trust now produces over 100 tonnes of food waste and while this is going to a beneficial use it does need to be reduced somehow.

Why is this important you might ask?

The answer is simple, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), the governing body controlling food waste is introducing a similar scheme for England from March 2025 for all businesses, the proposal will require all business premises must have a separate food waste collection regardless of size of quantity produced, this could change when debated in parliament, but as it stands that will mean we need to implement food waste collections from every site we operate from. The requirement is to be extended to councils collecting from households in 2026.

What does this mean?

As a trust we already send much of our food waste to be recycled at a bio-digester in Doncaster, this is food waste generated on the wards, main production kitchen, cafés and restaurants across the trust. The bio-digester at ReFood in Doncaster processes approximately 160,000 Tonnes of food waste per year. The process involves several stages from removal of any packaging before heating, pasteurising and cooling in an oxygen free environment (Anaerobic) which results in the production of two useful products:

1. gas, enough natural gas to power 12,600 homes per year
2. fertiliser ‘ReGrow’ a nutrient rich bio-fertiliser which is sold to local farmers

A byproduct of the process is heat, which is used to heat and run, through steam processes, a neighbouring industrial plant as well as the ReFood Plant.

From March 2025 we will need to start collecting all food waste from all departments as it will be made an offence to put food waste in the general waste bins. This is where we need our thinking caps on to ensure that all food waste is segregated, and a suitable process is developed to get the food waste to a central location for weekly collections.

Any thoughts or ideas about how we do this will be welcomed by the Green Champions team.

Why are we doing this?

The main reason is to measure the amount of food waste. If we don’t know how much is being produced, we can’t develop strategies to reduce it. Secondly, food waste is a rich source of energy, when put through anaerobic digesters it produces green energy. More food waste collections, equals more green energy and less reliance on fossil fuel. Third reason is to get more of the recyclable waste recycled. Much of the food packaging is currently sent to landfill or incinerators because it is contaminated and cannot effectively be recycled, removing food waste from general waste bins will encourage people to rinse the packaging so it can be more easily recycled. It also creates a more pleasant environment for the workers in the waste industry who have to manually separate some parts of the waste in Material Recycling Facilities (MRFs).

Trust obligations towards net zero 2040

Climate change has been found by the World Health Organisation to be the biggest threat to global health of the 21st century.

The UK has since set the target of becoming net zero by the year 2050. The NHS contributes to 4% to 5% of the UK’s carbon emissions and therefore plays a large role in working towards the national target. Therefore, the NHS has set the ambitious target of becoming the world’s first net zero national health service.

This aim comprises two targets:

• for the emissions we control directly (the NHS Carbon Footprint), we will reach net zero by 2040
• for the emissions we can influence (our NHS Carbon Footprint Plus), we will reach net zero by 2045

What legal obligations are expected of NHS trusts?

To ensure this target is met, the NHS has embedded net zero into legislation through the Health and Care Act 2022. This states that NHS England must comply with net zero emissions target in the Climate Change Act 2008. This places an obligation on NHS England and all NHS trusts to work towards emission and environmental targets.

To fulfil this obligation, each NHS trust has a Green Plan which sets out their aims, objectives, and delivery plans for carbon reduction. RDaSH specifically has included delivering the green plan in one of its 28 promises.

The NHS Standard Contract sets the expected actions that trusts should take forward in their green plans. These are:

• every trust to purchase 100% renewable energy from April 2021, with supply contracts changing as soon as possible
• every trust to reduce its use of desflurane to less than 10% of its total volatile anaesthetic gas use, by volume
• ensure that, for new purchases and lease arrangements, systems and trusts solely purchase and lease cars that are ultra-low emissions vehicles (ULEVS) or zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVS)
• develop a green travel plan to support active travel and public transport for staff, patients and visitors
• where outpatient attendances are clinically necessary, at least 25% of outpatient activity should be delivered remotely, resulting in direct and tangible carbon reductions

The trust has been successful in reducing its carbon emissions by over 50% in the last 10 years. This change is not only driven by legislation, as a healthcare provider, we have a responsibility to reduce our carbon emissions, air pollution and waste to protect and enhance the health and wellbeing of the public in our region.

Reusable tourniquets

As a Green Champion I am conscious about the effects of reusable plastic on the environment and take every opportunity to recycle and reuse wherever possible.

However, this can be a conflict in my role as an infection prevention and control (IPC) nurse, as I advocate the use of a large variety of different single use items to reduce the risk of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs).

With the greener NHS agenda and Promise 27 of our Clinical and Organisational Strategy 2023 to 2028 in mind I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to support these. Through my IPC network I had heard about reusable tourniquets, and I realised that if we could transition back to using them this would be a great way to contribute to the green agenda. Conventional reusable fabric tourniquets were once widely used, but a change to single use tourniquets was introduced into the NHS to reduce the risk of infection occurring as many studies identified tourniquets as having the potential to spread nosocomial infections. Now industry partners are also interested in the green agenda and want to work with providers to develop products that will have a positive impact on the environment.

I contacted Tristel that make the daisygrip reusable tourniquet and asked if we could trial it in some of our services. I also knew that another local trust was also introducing this product, following a successful trial which had resulted in a CO2 e-reduction of 2.3 tonnes, a £20,000 procurement saving and in one department 6,375 fewer single tourniquets used over six months. Even though this was in an acute or community trust I knew that we could make some savings, albeit on a smaller scale.

Nine clinical colleagues, across physical and mental health services, that undertake venepuncture were asked to trial the daisygrip tourniquet and we received lots of feedback, which we’ll use to assess how we take this work forward.

Thank you to Karen Foltyn for this article.

Look out for Karen Foltyn from IPC and a representative from Tristel who will be visiting Clinical teams and areas on 11 September to demonstrate and train colleagues on the reusable tourniquet

New gardeners join the team

We recently welcomed two new green fingered recruits Ravi and Gaz to our gardening team.

Ravi who has a formal horticultural training background and Gaz has a building and grounds maintenance background.

Together they have been looking after the green spaces across all our sites in North Lincolnshire, Rotherham and Doncaster.

Talking about his new role Ravi said: “Our day normally starts at around 7am. We do visual assessments and come up with a list of jobs which are prioritised, so we know which areas to focus on first. The less urgent work is added to our growing job list, and we share it between us.”

Gaz added: “As well as picking up our own work, we get job sheets from departments and clinics asking us to do gardening on their sites. We work on a rota basis and discuss which locations we will each visit and go along and do what is needed.”

Congratulations to Hayley

One of our healthcare support workers Hayley Smith has been awarded the coveted Chief Nursing Officer Award.

This silver award from Dame Ruth May, Chief Nurse of the NHS recognises the vital contribution that healthcare support workers make and their exceptional support to their nursing colleagues.

Hayley was nominated for this award by Cheryl Long, Deputy Ward Manager, who said: “Hayley’s work on the ward comes from a place of wanting to do the best for our patients. She always looks for ways to support the needs of each patient. She is hardworking and we know she will go above and beyond to get tasks done or put some special activity for patients. She truly deserves this award.”

Thank you, Hayley for everything to do for our patients and colleagues.

Charity matters

Thanks for supporting our summer fundraising!

Thanks to everyone who has supported our summer fundraising activities, whether it’s baking cakes to sell, volunteering time, donating prizes at the coffee morning, selling or purchasing raffle tickets, or simply turning up to support us, you’ve helped raise £3,400 at our Coffee Morning and Raffle.

We’ll be wishing 13 charity runners the best of luck in the Great North Run 2024 on Sunday 8 September. As well as training hard they’ve been busy fundraising, so we wish them well and hope they have a fantastic day!

Community comes together to raise thousands at charity football match

Residents from two neighbouring villages have come together to demonstrate their community spirit by raising over £4,180 for our hospice.

The annual charity football match between Barnburgh and Harlington held at Barnburgh playing fields saw Harlington win the game four goals to three on penalties to pick up the winners’ trophy.

Friends and family turned out to support the teams, before heading for refreshments at The Harlington Inn, followed by a disco, charity auction and games at Barnburgh Club.

Kelly Claxton who helped organise the event said: “It was a brilliant day and I’d like to say to everyone involved, from organising behind the scenes, playing football, donating raffle prizes, to turning out to support on the day, thank you! You’ve helped raise a fantastic amount of money for such a great local charity!”

Kelly and husband Mark visited the Hospice to hand over the money raised to Hospice Fundraiser Maureen Harwood who said: “Well done, and thank you for this wonderful donation, everyone should be extremely proud!

“Every penny will go towards supporting local patients and families, and ensuring they receive the best possible care and support from our Hospice team.”

South Yorkshire Lions support makes a real difference for patients

We were delighted to welcome Lions District Governor Kevin Hunter, along with representatives from Tickhill and District, Thorne Rural, Doncaster Lions Club and Doncaster Went Valley Lions Clubs, along with Tickhill Lions Clubs International Co-ordinator Ron Lindsay to showcase the equipment we have purchased from their generous £22,943 donation to our Hospice charity.

The funding has enabled us to purchase twelve brand-new rise and recliner chairs, a state-of-the-art bath hoist and lifting equipment, as well as three sensor mat kits to support both inpatients and day patients requiring specialist palliative and end of life care.

St John’s Hospice Service Manager Sam Edwards said: “We are extremely grateful to the Lions clubs for donating such an incredible sum of money, which will greatly benefit all our patients, both in our 10-bed inpatient setting, and our recently re-launched Day Therapy service.

“Patient comfort and safety are paramount for those in our care. As well as providing high quality seating in our Day Therapy Unit, the new lifting equipment will mean that even more of our patients will be able to enjoy a relaxing spa bath in our newly refurbished bathroom, and the three new wireless sensor mat kits will help us prevent falls for those patients who are assessed as being more at risk.”

Ron Lindsay, Lions Club International Foundation Coordinator for Tickhill and District Lions said: “After holding a whole host of fundraising activities during 2023, including race nights, car shows and golf days, as well as our ever-popular Christmas Santa sleighs, we then put a bid together to receive a match funded grant from the Lions Club International Foundation and were delighted to have been successful.”

Ron added: “Lions Clubs International has been in operation for over 100 years. It is made up of 1.4 million members in 49,000 clubs and we help hundreds of millions of people every year throughout the World”.

“This is the third time our clubs have worked together across Doncaster and district, and we are delighted to be able to grant such a large sum of funding to such a deserving local charity, which supports so many patients and families.

Like to be sponsor or fundraiser?

To find out about becoming a sponsor or to fundraise by holding an event, please contact St John’s Hospice Fundraising team on:

• Phone: 03000 214870
• Phone: 03000 214871

If you would like to make a donation, please contact Lindsey on:

• Email lindsey.richards@nhs.net

Visit the St John’s Hospice Facebook page (opens in new window) for more details.

Alternatively, donation can be made on the St John’s Hospice website (opens in new window).

London Marathon runner raises funds for hospice charity

An Armthorpe man who took on the London marathon as his first ever full marathon has raised £1,175 for our Hospice.

Scott Daines vowed to take part in the London marathon to raise funds for St John’s Hospice in memory of his mum Wendy Daines and mother-in-law Connie Mullins, to say thank you for their care, and went from couch to 42km in just nine months, thanks to a rigorous training regime.

Scott said: “The staff at St John’s were amazing with both of our families and I wanted to do something to say thank you for their support, so I entered the ballot for the London marathon, and was really surprised when I got the place, as I’d never done any distance running before.

He added: “I’d like to say thank you to everyone who has donated to my fundraising and to everyone who commented and gave me support, I really appreciate it.”

Receiving the donation for St John’s Hospice, Fundraiser Tracey Gaughan said: “Well done to Scott on such a fantastic personal achievement and thank you to him and everyone who donated for raising such a significant amount of money.”

Craig’s Great North Run

On Sunday 8 September one of our trainee Cognitive Behavioural Therapists will be joining hundreds of runners on the Great North Run.

Craig Schofield will be running for his charity Place2Be provides emotional support to children and young people in over 700 schools nationwide.

If you would like to support Craig and his charity, please go to his JustGiving page (opens in new window).

Edlington students get creative to support hospice charity

Around 800 pupil students at an Edlington school have taken part in a creative writing challenge to support the work of our hospice.

Students in years 7 to 10 from Sir Thomas Wharton Academy have written over 40 stories about the adventures of ‘John the Bear’, who is the mascot of St John’s Hospice in Balby, as part of the school’s Character Education Programme, and Year 9 Form 9H2 visited the hospice to share their winning story.

St John’s Hospice Activities Co-ordinator Richard Smith said: “Our resident teddy bear John the Bear brings smiles and comfort to young visitors whose loved ones are being cared for in the Hospice.

“We also have a short story for children to read about him, to make the hospice a less daunting place when they are visiting.

“So, when Miss Gerrard contacted us to discuss ideas for getting the pupils involved, we decided it would be fantastic for them to create stories about John and his adventures away from his hospice home, and we’re delighted with the results!”

Miss Gerrard from Sir Thomas Wharton added: “Our students and staff have worked tirelessly over the Summer Term to create their stories, along with beautiful illustrations, and we have been very proud of the way they have embraced this challenge and worked collaboratively.”

Richard Smith said: “On behalf of everyone at St John’s Hospice, I’d like to say a massive thank you to Miss Gerrard and all the staff and students for their amazing support, this is a fantastic example of partnership working in our local community.

“These stories will bring much joy to our young visitors, and we have ambitious plans to publish them in a book which can be sold to generate funds for our hospice charity.”

Flourish news

Balby family fest

The Balby family fest is coming up soon.

Perks include:

• big top circus performances
• bouncy castles
• live music
• ice cream
• face painting
• rides
• Bellestars dogs flyball demonstration
• BBQ
• craft activities
• bubble workshop
• arts and crafts market
• competitions and games
• family hub activities for under 3 years old
• museum on wheels
• free parking

Event details

St Catherine’s House and Walled Gardens
Woodfield Park
Tickhill Road
Balby, Doncaster
DN4 8QP

• Date: Saturday, 7 September 2024
• Time: 10am to 3pm

The Flourish team

The wonderful team at Flourish work collaboratively with the estates and gardening team at Tickhill Road site. The Head Gardener and Horticulturist Paul O’Byrne is an instrumental part of the team in creating and developing the Tickhill Road Site.

Their projects include:

• improvements in the orchard garden
• the tunnel of love
• a new path in the Old Peach garden using reclaimed brick

Enhancing the orchard garden: integrating natural and sustainable elements

The orchard Garden, a cherished sanctuary for many, has undergone a series of enhancements designed to improve both its aesthetic appeal and functional usability. These improvements include the integration of gabions filled with local limestone, the addition of seating and tables made from Yorkshire-grown larch, and the installation of reclaimed York stone paving. Each of these elements has been thoughtfully selected to create a harmonious and sustainable environment that honours the garden’s natural beauty and heritage.
By thoughtfully integrating gabions filled with local limestone, seating and tables made from Yorkshire-grown larch, and reclaimed York stone paving, the garden will become a more beautiful, sustainable, and enjoyable space for all who visit. These enhancements not only respect the garden’s natural and historical context but also enrich the visitor experience, ensuring that the Orchard garden continues to be a treasured haven for years to come.

The walled garden’s green revolution, growing local and reducing carbon footprint

The Walled Garden is making some exciting changes that are all about going green, cutting costs, and supporting the local community. By shifting to local plant propagation, growing their own produce for the café, and sourcing bread from nearby, they’re making a big impact on both the environment and their bottom line.

Growing plants locally

Previously, the garden centre at the Walled Garden bought all its plug plants from Holland. Now, they’re growing these plants right in the Walled Garden and its garden centre. This change reduces their carbon footprint since they no longer need to ship plants internationally. Plus, growing plants locally means they’re better suited to the local climate, making them healthier and stronger

Tunnel of Love, Sunnyside and Ben and Liz the Beekeepers

Work has started on the ‘Tunnel of love’ and Sunnyside projects where the tunnel will have flowering climbers such as clematis, wisteria and other scented pollinators to attract the bees, ladybugs and other helpful pollinators.

The pictures of the Tunnel of Love give you an idea for you to imagine how beautiful it will look when it is established! Keep popping by to see the progress.

Ben and Liz, our resident Beekeepers, recently had an episode where the bees swarmed on Tickhill Road Site. The action shot of Ben the Beekeeper trying to capture the bees up a tree is a testament to their commitment to the welfare of the bees and to his adventurous side!

Flourish is always looking for volunteers to join their friendly, supportive team. Like to know more about becoming a volunteer then please contact Ashley Evans at Ashley.evans4@nhs.net.

All are welcome.

Check out the flourish website (opens in new window): for future events, opening times and what’s new.

Readers’ letters

This is where you can get in touch about topics of interest, either work related or something else. Here are the latest questions people have sent in.

How much did the recent fun day and annual members meeting (AMM) cost, and how was it funded?

The recent fun day, and AMM was designed to connect with our communities in Rotherham and provide an event for staff to enjoy the activities, and our annual members’ meeting. The event was funded from our health and wellbeing fund and cost £30,000. Attendance was much higher than we expected with around 3500 staff and public spending time with us on the day, which equates to £8.57 per head.

Is there a plan to let some of the gardens and lawned areas of the trust become overgrown as part of the environment work?

“I’m keen to support the green agenda but I’m worried that patients and staff get benefit from the nice garden spaces, and this will change if we let the grass grow long.”

Yes, we do have plans to do this in some areas, but rather than losing out I believe there is a lot to learn and a lot of enjoyment to be had from this approach.

We have been allowing certain areas of the grounds to naturalise over the past six or seven years and this year in particular we have started to do this in more prominent areas.

Leaving these areas uncut for most of the year encourages natural and often quite rare wildflowers to grow that would normally be stifled by regular grass cutting. This has benefits for wildlife, pollinators in particular, but also provides safe habitat for small mammals, ground nesting birds and we’ve even had Roe Deer using the Tickhill Road site for raising their young.

On the field behind the bungalows at St Catherine’s Close, for example we have had a lot of buttercups in early summer, there have been several common spotted orchids, and in other areas we also have a lot of Bee Orchids. Rattle seed is being introduced in autumn, some was sown on the old Loversall Hospital site three years ago. Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus Minor) is an important species used to establish meadows as it chokes many of the grasses which then allows a greater variety of native plants to grow, increasing biodiversity and creating more attractive meadows.

The staff hours gained from reduction in regular mowing of some of these large grass areas will ensure that the ornamental gardens, particularly in and around the inpatient units, can be enhanced and maintained to a higher standard than has been seen lately. This is a work in progress, and we hope to see improved quality for all inpatient areas by the end of the year, this will be enhanced in the coming years as we look to develop the ornamental areas further with a standard approach across the whole trust.

All of the areas or re-wilded grass will have swathes of paths mown through so that staff, patients and visitors can walk through and enjoy the array of wildflowers, we will consistently monitor these areas for species and where feasible start to introduce more wildflower to make the areas more attractive.

If anybody has any further questions or would like to be involved in monitoring these areas, please do get in touch. There may be an opportunity, if we get enough interest, for staff to have a learning day identifying the many species of plant growing out there!

Thank you to our readers for sending us their letters. Please email your letters to us at rdash.rdashcommunications@nhs.net.

Toby’s last word

As Kath Lavery has written in introducing this month’s edition, the last few weeks have seen both the huge numbers of local people joining us at our community celebration, the Annual Members’ Meeting and Fun Day in Rotherham, and the violence, hate, and criminality of the riots earlier in August. Both, for our trust, have meaning, and will drive action.

Over coming weeks our anti-racism work will be widely shared with you, beyond the Appropriate Behaviour policy, which includes yellow and red cards, and kicks off during September. I am determined not that we do lots of new things, but that what we do is effective and authentic. For some colleagues they have stepped back from highlighting their experience of racism inside the trust, in part because they believe nothing meaningful will happen. We have to change that. Our day in July showed, in a different context, what can be done differently when we choose to risk change. It was wonderful to see so many colleagues, partners and members of local communities together and to make connections, perhaps especially with voluntary sector organisations active in Rotherham. Next year, next stop Scunthorpe in 2025.

Money, making it work for us

As you may remember in April 2023 it became clear that the trust had a funding problem. Over the pandemic years, one-off financial fixes had been used to meet our financial duties and that meant we had a deficit. Everyone’s hard work meant that we did that, and ended 2023 to 2024 in deficit, but better than we had expected or planned to be. We have invested in tackling longstanding quality issues like S136 staffing, learning disability team gaps, and waiting times for ADHD diagnoses. So far this year, in 2024 to 2025 we are sticking to our financial plan.

However, both integrated care boards in which we work have unresolved deficits of around £50 million. The incoming government has made clear that there is no expectation of new funds coming. So we need to restructure how we provide care to live within those means. The challenges faced by our partners in social care, education and the police service are similar, if not more daunting. There is no immediate rush to do something because these are longstanding problems. It will be important to recognise that the trust’s board must both continue to focus on this organisation’s finances and play our part in the wider care system. As I always include when I write about finances, please do not stop asking for what you need, we will always find money for critical safety issues.

Learning across our trust

We kick off learning half days very soon and it will doubtless take through to Christmas for the system to become smooth! The pilot in North Lincolnshire has given valuable insights into what we can gain, and what we need in place to make this immense opportunity successful for all. It does need to be all. Even if someone feels they have nothing to learn on a given topic, you may have something to teach, or share, or reflect, and we as colleagues need your help.

When we undertook our leadership restructure in 2023, we grappled with the best balance between place-based structures and trust-wide structures. As you will remember, we settled on retaining local structures for older adult and adult mental health services, while taking a different approach for some other services. I am delighted in that context to see the real service changes we are now making in Doncaster in assertive outreach and community rehabilitation. Delighted because, while change is deeply unsettling, I genuinely believe we will do better with and for our patients with the new model. But delighted too to see a model develop in 2024 that is learning from the similar changes made in Rotherham in 2023. We asked for consistency, which is not the same as uniformity. But seeing teams in similar areas of work learning from one another is crucial to raising our standards.

And that is precisely what the time being taken with learning half days is designed to enable.

@TobyLewis_NHS (opens in new window)

Page last reviewed: December 24, 2024
Next review due: December 24, 2025

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