Advancing Care in our Local Trust

Every year, more than 5,000 inpatients and 40,000 outpatients are cared for and treated by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, which is the local provider of mental health care for the more than 1 million people who live in Southwark, Lambeth, Lewisham and Croydon. Its dedicated staff work from its four hospitals and more than 100 community sites across the area.

South London and Maudsley Trust is the largest NHS mental health care provider in the UK, providing the widest range of mental health services in England: more than 50 national and specialist services for adults and children who have particularly complex needs, or for whom treatment has not been successful elsewhere.

Supporting South London and Maudsley to provide the best care it can is therefore a vital part of achieving our mission. As the Trust’s charity partner, Maudsley Charity works closely with people and teams across the organisation. We enable its dedicated staff to create and develop bright ideas that will improve service users’ experiences of care, both now and in the future.

From fast-turnaround initiatives that deliver rapid improvements, to long-term projects that address complex organisational challenges, we support positive change at every level of the Trust, so that everyone who needs it can have timely access the mental health care that’s right for them, and families and carers can feel confident in that care.

Everyday Enhancements

Through our Everyday Enhancements funding stream, we support staff at the Trust to do the best they can right now – whether it’s by improving the spaces where they provide care, running new activities for inpatients, or co-producing and co-delivering community-based support with service users. We also fund initiatives that promote staff learning, celebrate staff excellence, and improve staff wellbeing, so that everyone who works at the Trust is equipped and encouraged to provide every service user with the highest standard of mental health care.

Through the Change Makers programme, we partner with the Trust’s Listening into Action team to give grants of between £200 to £2,000 for staff to implement ideas that they feel could rapidly make a real difference. This programme funds everything from physical improvements to break rooms, gardens and onwards, to therapeutic activities for inpatients and people in the community.

Trust staff are keen to learn from one another and to celebrate and share excellent practice. We support their efforts by sponsoring the annual Staff Awards Ceremony. We sponsor or provide space at ORTUS to a number of staff conferences and events including the annual Nurses Conference and the Anti-Racism and Leadership Development Conference.

Transformation

Through our Transformation funding stream, we collaborate with researchers, clinicians and the Trust’s senior leadership to develop, test and implement lasting solutions to complex problems. From using data to streamline the way care is delivered, addressing inequalities with the involvement of people with lived experience, establishing high-level partnerships,  investing in  modern buildings and equipment, to piloting ambitious new models of care, we support the Trust to create transformational change for the benefit of everyone who accesses its services.

We continue to support two other major initiatives at the Trust. The Patient and Carer Race Equality
Framework (PCREF) is implementing change ideas to address the issue of unequal care experienced by people from Black communities, and the Locating Useful Clinical Information project (LUCI), is revolutionising care through the improved use and sharing of data.