In October 2020, we appointed the Good Governance Institute (GGI) to undertake a governance review to understand how well our governance and assurance processes are working across the Trust and to help us to improve these.
The review followed GGI’s well-established methodology - gathering evidence in a variety of ways, including through meeting observations, interviews, focus groups, a staff survey and documentation review followed by subsequent analysis.
The report from the review identifies areas of good practice, including:
- A committed and credible Board with strong relationships with local organisations, both NHS and non-NHS
- Broadly effective internal and external communications
- Examples of innovative practice, especially with regard to some of the digital interventions we observed
- Good executive visibility, exhibited particularly by the CEO, Chief Nurse and Medical Director
- A keenness to celebrate “what is good”
- A strong commitment to resolving some long-standing issues such as addressing some behaviours through providing enhanced support to a number of clinical teams
- An impressive commitment to diversity and inclusion, which is beginning to be acknowledged externally
- A positive impact on recruitment and retention of staff
- Leadership teams were proactively addressing areas for improvement
The review also highlighted some areas for improvement and made a series of recommendations, including:
- Improving overall senior visibility, including Board members
- Ensuring that there is a consistent narrative for the Trust’s quality improvement
- Clarifying priorities for Care Groups and ensure that these are appropriately linked to the Trust Strategy and Business Assurance Framework
- Ensuring that staff understand and recognise the Trust strategy and their links to the delivery of the objectives
- Introducing a targeted programme of organisational development, particularly focused on staff behaviours
- Further formalising the channels that staff can use to communicate concerns and ensure that this is clearly communicated, including making those channels that already exist better known
- Reviewing the functioning of the Council of Governors and put in place a Governor development programme
- Reviewing Trust management committee and groups - ensuring that they have a clear purpose and are not duplicating work and effort, and that they are appropriately attended
- Continuing work to ensure that incidents and other information is interrogated thematically, triangulated and that the lessons are more effectively shared across the organisation
This isn’t the end of the GGI’s work with us. They are now supporting us to put plans in place to take forward the recommendations. We have also launched an internal ‘How much is too much?’ communications campaign aimed at improving awareness of governance and encouraging colleagues to own their actions taken to improve quality and patient safety. There will also be a specific focus on training and development for colleagues.