Days are longer, sun is out, daffodils are blooming and Monitor are here!

So all good in FT. We have collectively all worked long and hard for this moment and I am delighted to report that so far, the Monitor process is going well. We have been allocated a team of really nice people (one of whom has extensive mental health experience which is great) who plan on being with us for about 10 days over the next two months and meeting as many people in the Trust as possible.

Monitor’s aim is to ensure we are well managed, financially robust and most importantly, provide high quality services and that we will continue to do so into the future. If we can prove we are able to meet their high standards in each of these three areas, then we will be authorised as a Foundation Trust. That is when the really important business of working with our partners to continually improve mental health and well being in Manchester begins.   

As well as Monitor, our elections to the Council of Governors are underway. You have until Wednesday 28 March to vote and get your ballot paper in the post – as it must be received in London by Friday 30 March 5pm in order to count. Anything after this is a wasted vote! Please vote and also encourage your colleagues, friends, family and neighbours to do so – there is a stamped addressed envelope with your ballot form so it will only cost you five minutes!

I would like to thank all those who have stood for a position – either staff or public - it has been fantastic to read so many inspiring statements! Voting is always important but voting for your colleagues who have gone out of their way to stand as a potential Governor is especially important. It would be great to have a high turnout to show our support to them but also to give the Council of Governors a fantastic start - it will have such a vital role in the future.

So good luck to all you candidates and look out for the announcement of our new Council on Monday 2 April!

And the ending (as always!)"Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. One says, "I think I've lost an electron." The other says "Are you sure?" The first says, "Yes, I'm positive..."Tommy Cooper

Hello – and a very happy (belated!) New Year

Monitor certainly don’t hang about! Within a few days of the Secretary of State approving our FT application and therefore starting the final leg of the process, Monitor had been in contact and all systems are go!

Monitor commenced a desk top review of our Trust last week. The Chief Executive, Director of Finance, Medical Director, Director of Nursing and Therapies and I took part in a conference call (2 hours!) and by the end of this week, we should know our likely timetable. It feels a long time coming but now it is all happening – and we are ready!

Possibly the most exciting part of this final stage, is that we can now finally start our elections to the Council of Governors. This Council will be vital to the delivery of our strategy over the next few years. As you are aware, there are 4 staff Governors on the Council and we will be emailing you all this week to tell you about the process and how you can request a nomination form. You will also receive a copy of the latest Members News this week – this contains Frequently Asked Questions as well as a whole series of internal and external meeting dates where you could come and meet with Wyn Dignan, the Chair of the Trust and myself.

If you are wondering what might be in it for you, hopefully this will be a persuasive argument! It will allow your voice to be heard at the most senior committee in the Trust, offer a chance for you to represent your colleagues, allow you to network, improve your CV and most importantly, help guide the Trust in the future for the benefit of our service users, carers and local population. I am a Governor in another FT – and can honestly say, that I have already after only one year, found it to be a very rewarding experience. I really hope you think about standing and do not hesitate to contact either myself or a member of the FT Project Team (Alexa and Laura) should you have any queries.

Many of you donated a football shirt for me to take to South Africa over Christmas. My family and I had the most wonderful holiday and in particular, the experience and time we spent in a township, just outside Ulundi, KraZula Natal. The football shirts went down a storm! I cannot possibly describe how kind, generous and hospitable the family we stayed with were – they had so little but shared so much. It really made us realise quite how lucky we are (some photos below).

The village football game - in matching shirts!

My two children with a few young football stars of the future!

Our welcome to the village - very overwhelming!

So to end in my customary way:

"So I was getting into my car, and this bloke says to me "Can you give me a lift?" I said "Sure, you look great, the world's your oyster, go for it.” Tommy Cooper

Jessica Williams

FT Project Director

Finally, confirmation from the Department of Health that we have been approved to move to the final stage of the Foundation Trust application process. We have now been approved by both the Strategic Health Authority and the Department of Health – so now we can move forwards into the third and final phase of the application process.

This final phase is with Monitor, the independent body which regulates Foundation Trusts. As part of the process, we will host a team of Monitor representatives on site for up to three months. Their role will be to scrutinise our assurance frameworks, governance arrangements and examine our finances and 5 year plans in great detail to decide whether we should be approved as an FT.

During the time Monitor are here, it is highly likely that they will visit clinical and non clinical areas to talk and listen to staff about their views of the Trust and to test the level of understanding in this organisation about Foundation Trusts and what this will mean in the future. You are probably already well aware of our Foundation Trust project from the following: the FT newsletters, Members News, FT roadshows, FT team talks and the dedicated web pages, but we will also running more roadshows in January on all the Trust main sites and in public places around the city. These will be publicised on the web site as will some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

We will ensure there is sufficient information out there for you – we just need you to read it! However, please don’t worry – you will not be expected to know everything and you can be confident if you are interviewed by Monitor. No date has yet been set for the start of the Monitor visit but I will endeavour to give all staff as much notice as possible.

As we have passed the Department of Health stage, we can now finally start our elections to the Council of Governors. This Council will be vital to the delivery of our strategy over the next few years and I am really excited about how the Council will be able to contribute in the future. We need dedicated members of staff to stand for election and represent their colleagues. Please do think about standing and do not hesitate to contact either myself or a member of the FT Project Team (Alexa and Laura) should you have any queries.

Having received the letter, I am now off on holiday/big adventure to South Africa. As many of you know, we are staying with a family in a township for a few days and I asked (via Trust Communications) for second hand football shirts to take. You have been amazingly generous – I am getting on a plane with 22kg of Premier League football shirts! When I emailed the village to tell them this, they replied to say they are now organising an inter village football match so that we can give out all the shirts to good homes! Thank you so much for donating your shirts – I am sure everyone will be thrilled with their shirt whether it be blue, red or yellow and it is definitely going to be an amazing experience!  I will have photos for the next blog…

Have a great Christmas and a wonderful New Year. To end as usual with the great man himself: “I phoned the local ramblers club today, but the bloke who answered just went on and on…” Tommy Cooper

I am delighted to announce we passed the Department of Health Medical Directors Committee this week. To those of you who do not spend every working minute focussing on the next stages of our Foundation Trust application (anyone apart from me!), this may not sound like a big deal. However, it is a vital stage in the application process and one which is particularly pleasing. Passing the Medical Director’s Committee means you have had your quality assurance processes scrutinised in great depth by some of the most senior clinicians in the country and found satisfactory. This is a significant achievement  

So having achieved this sign off, we now need the official Department of Health sign off and a letter from the Secretary of State to authorise us to move to the final assessment stage with Monitor. We are submitting an updated Integrated Business plan at the beginning of October and believe that we will be able to move through to Monitor by the end of that month. This would put us on track to be authorised by April 2012 – and then we can really get on with delivering the benefits of being an FT!

Alexa Taylor and I have now visited virtually ever team in the Trust to talk about Foundation Trust status and what it will mean to staff, patients, carers and the public. I hope you found these sessions useful and enjoyed the biscuits… We found the meetings fascinating – the different questions that came up, the huge amount of interest expressed in the staff Governor positions and the chance to see more of our sites (especially those of the health and wellbeing services) where we were able to gain a greater understanding of the scope of our services. If you missed one of these, please do get in touch as we will be more than happy to come out again – we really enjoyed them! If you would like any further information about a Governor position – just let me know as I will be very happy to provide this.

Did you come to the Members day last year in Gorton? If so, you would know what a fantastic day it was. Beautiful surroundings, glorious sunshine, excellent Trust and partner led activities, lots of members and an afternoon of dancing. It was fun, informal, accessible and had a positive health and well being message. This day was instrumental in us being awarded the Olympic 2012 Inspire mark and combined with receiving such great feedback – we are now holding another one.

There isn’t a guarantee of sunshine and I know Wythenshawe Forum is not quite as attractive as the Monastery, but we have an even better afternoon planned! We are holding a TRY-athlon – where you will have the chance to try a few different activities such as Nordic walking, and static cycling, enjoy some street dance, tuck into a free healthy lunch, receive a free seven day pass to any Manchester Council gym/leisure facility, learn how you can improve your wellbeing and participate in a giant Zumba class. I can only hope I will be marginally more co-ordinated in this than I was in the Bollywood workshop last year! Do come along and encourage your family, friends and service users – it will be a jolly and fun afternoon.

And as is now customary, here is another Tommy Cooper.

“I said to the gym instructor: ‘Can you teach me to do the splits?’ He said: ‘How flexible are you?’ I said: ‘I can’t make Tuesdays’.”

Becoming an FT is almost within sight. Gosh.

It has been ages since I last updated this blog – apologies if you have been at the edge of your seat awaiting the next missive from the FT Office (somehow I suspect this is unlikely!).

When I last wrote, we had just received authorisation to move forwards to the Department of Health (DoH) stage of the FT application. And I think it might help if we had a quick recap on what this actually means.  Stage one involved great scrutiny from NHS North West (our Strategic Health Authority) regarding our plans for our services, the challenges we face in terms of demand and how we plan to meet the needs our service users.  We also had to produce a five year financial plan. We passed this stage in October last year and so now our application is before the DoH. Being considered by the DoH is effectively stage two of a three part journey on the road to FT.  

We have done as much as we can do for this stage and are holding our breath/anxiously awaiting the outcome of the Department of Health Applications Committee being held later this month. To get this far we had to submit what is the 6th version of our Integrated Business Plan the 250 page document (not including appendices!!) which describes our Trust, what services we provide and what we will do in the future as well as our Long Term Financial Model (LTFM – the five year projection of our finances) at the end of March. So now we wait…..until later this month when we hope that the Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley, writes to confirm that we are able to progress to the final stage, which is with MONITOR.  Expect a fanfare when we receive this letter although it is this stage which will be really full on for all of us!

MONITOR is the regulator of Foundation Trusts and the standard of quality, governance, financial performance and management ability which they expect to see is really high. A team will come from London and are likely to be here for about 3 months digging deep into our recent performance, our standards and assessing the robustness of our future plans. It will certainly be a challenging time for the FT Office, the Executive Team and the Finance team amongst others but at the end of it, I know we will have proved that we provide high quality services and have an organisation fit for the future.

MONITOR will also be out and about in the Trust speaking to staff in various service areas to reassure themselves that we have an understanding of what FT status will mean to us and what the Trust is hoping to achieve in the coming years. FT News amongst other Trust communications will keep you informed of progress and myself or Alexa Taylor (FT Project Manager) will be aiming to attend every team meeting throughout the Trust over the next three months to talk through the benefits of being an FT, how staff can play a vital role in the future through the Council of Governors as well as the detail of what the MONITOR process involves.

I also want to take this opportunity to welcome all the staff who transferred in from Manchester Community Health – you have joined us at exciting and optimistic times. You will all have been opted in to the Foundation Trust membership and although you are free to opt out, I really hope you don’t and that you will use your vote to elect a representative for your staff group. Even better if you wanted to stand for a Governor position – just let me know if you would like any additional information.

So, after living and breathing FT for the last three years, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Bring on MONITOR – we are ready!

A good joke:

'Doc, I can't stop singing the green green grass of home.
'That sounds like Tom Jones syndrome'.

'Is it common?'
'It's not unusual.’

Even if I am showing my age, you have to adore Tommy Cooper.

Really good news – we have passed the SHA gateway of the Foundation Trust application process. This may not sound like a big deal and you may wonder what I am hip hipping about, but if you had written our Integrated Business Plan (all 300 pages) as often as I have – you would understand why the FT team is so excited!

The SHA manage the initial stage of a Trust’s FT application process. This can take anything from 12 months onwards and basically in order to proceed to the next stage, the SHA need to be satisfied that a Trust has a 95% chance of success through the Monitor process. The Executive Team at the SHA met on Monday this week and following extensive discussion of our application including our IBP, our Long Term Financial Model, our proposed Constitution and all the internal and external assurance reports focussing on the quality of services we offer, they agreed we were a high quality, financially sound and well managed organisation!

So the second stage starts now – and this is with the Department of Health. We have sent off a vast array of documents and expect to be closely examined by Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health and his team. If it all goes well, we should hear by the end of November that we are approved by the Department of Health to formally apply to Monitor. The pressure will get even more intense then – Monitor will send in a team to pick over every aspect of our business and meet many of our staff. But we know we have a strong, good and forward thinking organisation which is ready to embrace the challenges ahead – so bring it on!

Membership continues to go well. I went to Sainsbury’s in Fallowfield earlier this week and it was so nice to have an opportunity to talk to people about what we offer, how we can help and to hear their stories. We are giving away bubbles at the moment with an upbeat message and our Trust logo – bubbles always make me smile and smiling = happy = positive mental health! We have many more events lined up – anyone fancy it?

What happened to all that hot weather? Extraordinary that as soon as the hose pipe ban came into being last Friday, it has hardly stopped raining since. Being a big fan of the sunshine, I am very excited about my big family holiday at the end of the week (off to Sardinia – anyone been there who could recommend beaches/restaurants etc?) but still two days of work before I can start to wind down and relax with a glass of…. whatever is white, still and chilled in Sardinia.

Anyway, back to FT. Another busy period since I last updated my blog. As an FT team, it feels like we have been out and about everywhere across the city with our membership stand. We are trying to recruit 200 public members a month - a demanding target. We did really well in June and exceeded it – mainly due to some excellent staff volunteers (Sean Lennon, Cara Pursall, Judith King and Trish Dwyer – you guys were great!) who helped me at a very busy day at the Didsbury Festival. July has been less good although Jane Lee did a sterling job at the SEVA Mini Mela and we still have some events to go… High hopes for August with a full day at the Caribbean Carnival amongst others – I suspect I may be eating my way around that festival!

The 4^th iteration of the IBP was submitted on schedule and we had our Board meeting with the SHA Board. This went really well and the feedback we have had has been really positive. It was a stressful time in the run up though as these meetings can be very pressured and it is vital that everyone gives a good account of themselves. It is a key milestone in our FT application and as it was so positive, we should be able to enter the next stage of being examined by the Department of Health in the autumn.

So the next big challenge is our first Members Day. We are inviting all our public members (over 3000 of them!) to an afternoon of DANCING at Gorton Monastery on Weds 1^st September. I love dancing (despite my kids literally begging me not to dance ever again to Chumba Wumba) and as we base all of our FT work around anti stigma, positive well being etc, I thought we could all have top fun learning to line dance and possibly even doing an enormous conga around the Monastery. How fantastic is this day going to be?

We need about 40 staff to help on the day – are you able to help? If so, give Laura, FT Administrator a shout on 882 1077 and she can give you further details. It is going to be a great laugh – just hopefully not everyone laughing at me…

Enjoy the summer and see you at the Monastery!  

Jess

The summer appears to be here – hooray. It is gorgeous and hot today as I sit here in Chorlton House. I love the summer – something about feeling warm air and having warm bones that always makes me happy!

We continue with our Foundation Trust and had another important milestone this month. We submitted our 3rd iteration of our Integrated Business Plan (IBP) to the Strategic Health Authority on 30th April – all 400 pages of it! An IBP is a detailed 5 year plan and the main document used by Monitor, the independent regulator, to judge the abilities and progress of a Trust through the application process but also for the first five years when authorised. It is therefore crucial that the document encapsulates all that we want to do, how we want to listen and work with our service users and carers and how we will provide an effective, high quality and efficient mental health service for Manchester.

We will be submitting our 4th and final version of our IBP in July and then hopefully this will be deemed sufficiently robust for the Strategic Health Authority to grant their approval to move to the next stage of the process with the Department of Health. When this happens, we will be able to post the Executive Summary of the IBP on our website – this is just 30 pages!

Membership continues to grow and we will be putting lots of effort in to signing up members over the summer. I hope lots of staff will come and help the FT team as we get out and about across the city. We now have 4827 members and have just sent out our 2nd Members News – we are looking forwards to meeting our 5000th member!

The FT team raised over £405 for MIND by running 5k in fairy outfits at a Trust event Get Fit Get Well on 7th April. Despite being the oldest (and arguably the crankiest) member of the team, I finished first and was able to rub the teams noses in this for a couple of days. Very satisfying.

Jess

Hello all,

Once again time has flown past and we’ve been busy in the FT project office.  Since the last blog, our formal consultation period has come to an end.  It was a busy time as Alexa and I attended 52 different engagement events between October 2009 and February 2010 across the City and which attracted more than 500 people. Remind me next time to run a consultation and membership drive in the summer months!  

A paper was taken to the Trust Board on 25th February 2010 who then approved the outcome of the consultation process. The final Constitution will be taken to the March Trust Board meeting for approval. You will be able to view both of these documents on our FT website: http://ft.mhsc.nhs.uk/. 

Thank you to everyone who supported the FT team at these events during this period and all those who came along to find out more and have their questions answered. The comments and feedback we received will play an important part in shaping how we move forwards with our Foundation Trust application.

We’re still working hard on recruiting an active and representative membership and at the end of February 2010 we had 4628 members! This figures includes our staff but it means we’re well on our way to achieving our target of 6000 by the end of October. 

We are really pleased with how well the recruitment campaign has gone so far but we still need grow – the more members we have, the more people we can inform about mental health issues, reduce stigma and improve representation and governance of our Trust. We especially need as many service users and carers as possible to become members of our Trust and would be really grateful if you would continue to hand out membership forms and talk about the importance of this to those service users and carers with whom you interact. We still have a few £25 vouchers left for a few more prize draws over the next couple of months so don’t forget to ensure your name is at the bottom of the forms you give out – someone has to win the vouchers! 

Over the next few months, we will be holding stands in libraries and supermarkets around the city as well as a number of FT Surgeries in Outpatient Departments, Day Centres, and voluntary groups. If you would like us to visit you, or would like to volunteer at one of the roadshows, then please contact the FT team on 0161 277 1222. You can also sign up as a member using our online membership form which can be found at http://ft.mhsc.nhs.uk/become-a-member.aspx.

And just in case you wanted some more information about Foundation Trusts, here are the top ten facts you need to know…

1. Foundation Trusts (FT) are a way of creating local ownership by giving our service users and carers, staff, local people and our partners an opportunity to have a greater influence on how their mental health services are run.
2. Being an FT will allow local people to have an influence in shaping the strategic direction of the Trust by becoming members and being elected to a Council of Governors.
3. Becoming a Foundation Trust will allow us to develop and further explore our partnership arrangements and help us improve relationships. 
4. Public and stakeholder representation on our Council of Governors will enhance existing joint working arrangements and support development of new partnerships in order to ensure that services are delivered how, when and where people need them.
5. Having a representative, active and well informed membership will help us in our bid to reduce stigma and discrimination around mental health problems.
6. There will be increased opportunities for staff to innovate and develop locally appropriate services.
7. As a Foundation Trust we will also gain increased financial freedoms including the ability to carry forward planned surpluses at the end of each year, borrow money more easily and respond more effectively to service development opportunities.
8. Being authorised as an FT and therefore successfully going through the rigorous FT application process will show we are a high performing, high quality, well-managed and financially robust organisation with an effective governance system. This will improve our reputation and benefit our service users, carers, staff and the local and wider community. 
9. There will be a clearly identified and widely agreed five year strategy for the Trust.
10. We will have a new punchy name which summarises our aspirations –Manchester Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

I hope the above is useful and informative but if you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact myself or Alexa Taylor as we will be only too happy to help answer them.

Jess Williams

FT Project Director

Hello all,

Where does time go? I can’t believe it has been over three months since the last FT blog. There has been a lot happening so hopefully this update will be interesting!

We have been focusing on two main areas; membership recruitment and consultation meetings.

As part of our application to become a foundation trust we need to sign up members of the public, including service users and carers, to become members of our trust.  These members will play a vital role in the future of the Trust as they will elect the Governors who will help to refine and develop the strategic intentions of the Trust.  

Members can be as involved as much or as little as they want. Minimum involvement could simply be reading the newsletter which will go out at least 3 times per annum and filling out surveys, but we hope a number of members will be interested enough in the workings of our Trust and our direction to express an interest and stand for election as a Governor.  We also hope that many other members will vote for those they feel best represent their interests. 

As our Council of Governors will work alongside the Board of Directors and have oversight of the Board of Directors workings, as well as having the responsibility of appointing the Chair of the Trust and the External Auditors, we really want to ensure we recruit an active and representative membership. It is vital this membership represents the City of Manchester as it is this population we serve.  We therefore started our membership drive with an anti-stigma campaign and a week long road show at the very busy and central Arndale Centre and signed up over 1700 members!!! Staff, service users and carers all came and helped with the Foundation Trust stand and I think everyone enjoyed their time and meeting people and talking to them about the important work we do.  This success has carried on throughout the rest of the year with roadshows at supermarkets, train stations and the town hall to name just a few and we now have over 2900 members….really good considering we were initially aiming for 3000 by March and then 4500 by August!  

We couldn’t have done this without all the staff who wrapped up warm, put on their comfy shoes and volunteered to help at the road shows.  I really think that having people from the Trust out in the community, talking to people and explaining what we do and what the foundation trust is has helped recruit large numbers of people interested in mental health and making a difference. Additionally, staff have also been talking to service users, carers, friends and family and signing them up and this is keeping our FT Administrator busy entering all of these details onto our secure and private database.  We really appreciate all the help and seeing the handfuls of forms appearing in our tray or clutched in peoples hands at the FT door.

Having said all this……we want to keep this momentum going and most importantly sign up more and more of our service users and carers because they are the ones who we want to be well represented on our Council of Governors!

Alongside the membership recruitment, we’ve also been running a formal consultation process around the Foundation Trust – see http://ft.mhsc.nhs.uk/the-consultation-process.aspx. 

This has meant visiting lots of places around the city to talk to staff, voluntary groups, partners, service user and carer groups to make sure everyone has the opportunity to put their views forward.  We’ve held 8 formal consultation meetings with the public, 4 specifically with staff, visited over 30 different groups all to ensure people have a chance to come and hear about our Foundation Trust application and ask any questions they may have. 

The consultation is running until 6^th February so there is still plenty of time to send your response forms in.

 If however, you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact myself or Alexa Taylor as we will be only too happy to help answer them. We look forward to continuing to work with you to sign up members!

Jess Williams

FT Project Director