Our Strategy

Trust strategy 2025-2030: Towards Excellence

Our strategy is informed by what our patients, staff, and stakeholders, including our regulators, tell us about the services that we currently provide.

We are clear about our purpose, ambition, strategic objectives and our values and behaviours. They are the cornerstone of this new five year strategy ‘Towards Excellence’.

Our Purpose (why we exist) is:

• To deliver excellent healthcare every day

Our Ambition (where we aspire to get to – our True North) is:

• To provide an excellent patient experience every time

Our Strategic Objectives (what we will do to achieve our ambition) are:

• To provide timely, responsive, safe, accessible and effective services at all times
• To create a great place for our people to work, learn and thrive
• To work together with partners to improve the health and wellbeing of the communities we serve
• To challenge the ways of today to develop a better tomorrow through research, innovation and transformation
• To use resources to deliver healthcare today without compromising the health of future generations
• To be well-led with effective governance and sound finance

To be successful, our workforce will have a clear understanding of the strategic objectives of the organisation and their role in contributing to their attainment. Our actions and choices, no matter one’s role, should be aligned with the Trust’s purpose, ambition, and strategic objectives. We believe that every colleague has an important contribution to make and are committed to ensuring they are enabled to provide the services our communities deserve.

The way we do things is just as important and what we do. Our Values (how we behave and make decisions at work), developed with our staff, are:

• Kindness
• Openness
• Excellence

To support staff to live our values every day, we have a behaviour framework defining the standards we should all expect of ourselves and each other.

The relationship between our purpose, ambition, strategic objectives and values is shown below. This also incorporates the enabling strategies we require.

Our Six Strategic Objectives

1. To provide timely, responsive, safe, accessible and effective services at all times

Quality of care is of paramount importance to us.  We are committed to keeping our patients safe at all times.

We will:

• Provide high quality, effective care.
• Ensure timely and accessible services for all and meet NHS constitutional standards.
• Involve patients and carers in decisions about their care to achieve their most appropriate outcome.
• Ensure equity of access to our services.
• Provide efficient pathways that support patients to return to their usual or new place of residence, minimising delays and patient harm.

2. To create a great place for our people to work, learn and thrive

We value our people and aspire to be an excellent employer; which people choose to join, want to stay and where they can develop their careers.

We will:

• Nurture professional growth and development through education and training of our workforce.
• Recruit and retain people who live our values and behaviours.
• Foster a safe, inclusive, diverse and supportive workplace.
• Nurture a culture of feedback, appreciation and recognition.
• Improve staff wellbeing.

3. To work together with partners to improve the health and wellbeing of the communities we serve

We work collaboratively with other providers including primary care, local authority, voluntary organisations and social care providers to best meet the needs of the people we serve.

We will:

• Work with our system partners to have innovative care pathways that treat people in the best place possible without delay.
• Develop new pathways of care by working across organisational boundaries at a place-based or locality-based level.
• Work with partners in our role as an Anchor Institution to maximise local economic growth and improve our community’s health and wellbeing.
• Work with Primary Care Networks and other neighbourhood partners to reduce health inequalities and increase positive health and wellbeing.
• Develop joint initiatives with educational institutions to grow the workforce of the future and providing employment routes for local people.

4. To challenge the ways of today to develop a better tomorrow through research, innovation and transformation

As a learning organisation, with two acute hospitals and vibrant community services, we are perfectly positioned to be actively involved in research, improvement and innovation opportunities.  Enhancing our involvement in these areas will strengthen our offering to our patients and staff.

We will:

• Establish and embed a systemic approach to continuous improvement which will empower our staff and engage our patients to improve the quality and value of what and how we do things.
• Embrace digital technologies to innovate and transform, improving our patient and staff experience and increasing productivity.
• Work with academic and commercial institutions to explore appropriate research partnerships.
• Aim to increase the amount of funded research and encourage and support innovative ideas and proposals.

5. To use resources to deliver healthcare today without compromising the health of future generations

Our long-term sustainability is tied to the wellbeing of the population we serve and as an Anchor Institution we strive to ensure our actions and decisions do not compromise our future.

We will:

• Make effective and efficient use of our current and future estate.
• Work with our partners to promote healthy lifestyle choices and ill health prevention.
• Integrate sustainable practices into everything we do and reduce our carbon footprint.
• Consider the environmental impact of all the decisions we make.
• Invest in environmentally friendly technologies.

6. To be well-led with effective governance and sound finance

We are a public sector NHS organisation with responsibility for providing best value for the use of the public’s money and to conduct ourselves in accordance with public sector values and principles, including openness and accountability.

Good governance is essential; whilst it alone does not guarantee a Trust’s success, no Trust can succeed without it.

We will:

• Create a culture of compassionate leadership and accountability.
• Routinely use data and intelligence to inform decisions to provide best value and quality of service.
• Ensure clear lines of communication and engagement.
• Foster a culture of openness where staff feel safe to speak up.
• Ensure sound financial governance providing services within the resources available.
• Have effective governance arrangements that meet or exceed ‘best practice’ guidelines.
• Comply with standards outlined by our regulators.

Download the Trust strategy 2025-2030 Towards Excellence or read the sections below.

You can also download a text-only version of our Trust’s strategy.