HSJ Awards 2018: Trust of the Year

Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust

No one could accuse leaders at Northamptonshire Healthcare FT of setting their sights low. The overall aim is to support change and growth both locally and on a national scale. Individual goals include demonstrably changing cultures to influence care; delivering innovations that change lives; staying financially robust in a challenged climate; and developing strong partnership working.

But the evidence is these goals are being met. A redesigned partnership-focused mental health crisis pathway is said to be reducing acute admissions, and has been selected as an NHS England case study; the organisation’s chief executive is now heading the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership; financial targets have been met, with the control total actually exceeded; a new facility opened to offer repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for treatment resistant depression; and a crisis house has delivered £800,000 savings in acute admissions.

Staff and patients alike seem to greatly value the organisation. There have been significant gains in employee engagement as measured by the national staff survey, with the organisation now the top performer of its kind on the percentage of staff who would recommend it as a place to work.

In 2017-18, patients left 25,089 reviews of the trust via its feedback system, iWantGreatCare. Some 94 per cent would recommend the trust’s services to friends and family, and the organisation is rated 4.81 out of five for overall experience.

Read a detailed case study about this project at HSJ Solutions