17th February 2025
Welcome to my February blog, which takes a look at the new planning guidance, what we as clinicians can do to support prevention, changes and progress at the mental health trust, and the launch of our recruitment for the ICB’s clinical stewards.
National planning guidance
The national NHS planning guidance is now out – in the coming weeks we will be working with stakeholders and providers as we assess the implications.
The key national target areas for next year are:
- Continue to reduce elective care waiting times, with 65 per cent of patients waiting less than 18 weeks
- Improve ambulance response and A&E waiting times, with a minimum of 78 per cent of patients seen within four hours
- Improve patients’ access to general practice (GP) and urgent dental care access, including 700,000 additional urgent dental appointments
- Accelerate patient flow in mental health crisis and outpatient care pathways.
Financial pressures are incredibly challenging across our system and the whole of the NHS.
I encourage you all, as clinicians who know your services inside out, to help identify areas where we could improve or maintain care while also saving money or improving productivity. If you have ideas on how we can save money while protecting services, please reach out and share your suggestions. Your input is invaluable as we navigate these challenges together.
But, we all know that however careful we are to reduce waste, and however innovative we are to redesign and improve services, demand is still growing and we cannot keep up.
So, prevention is key!
As an ICB, we continue to work incredibly closely with Public Health colleagues and I’d like to highlight some of the services available for our population and patients. And I’d like to make a plea – can we all take every opportunity to support, signpost and nudge our patients. There are amazing resource available, and there is a very simple user friendly digital front door to many of them.
I am asking every practice and every NHS trust to upload links to these resources, but I am also asking every doctor to think about how they can help their patients to use them. The NHS is a well trusted brand and doctors are very trusted by our patients, so I personally feel that we have a duty to make every contact count, and to help with general health promotion, rather than just the specific medical issue they are presenting with.
Please share this one key link for general signposting.
This is the first stop for people interested in general health improvement and carries links to healthy eating, weight loss, being more active, smoking cessation, drinking less, sleep tips and general advice on how to start and maintain behaviour change.
It also gives some general information about the national NHS Health Checks scheme – whereby people aged 40-74, who aren’t already known to have a long-term condition, are offered a health screen every five years.
If you’d like to know more about NHS health checks, or need to book your own, have a look on the Health Check website.
We need to empower people to help themselves, so I’d also like to remind you of a couple of other key resources for patients, which I use a huge amount:
Weight management
There is a one stop shop for weight management, which encourages people to learn more about weight loss, to access Your Health Norfolk in person group sessions, Slimming World, the NHS Digital weight management programme for people with diabetes or hypertension, and lots more useful information.
MSK
Similarly, there is a one stop shop for people with MSK conditions. People can self-refer for physiotherapy, using the Airmid app based platform which is fully linked to primary care records, or call 01493 809977 for those who prefer non-digital means. This also offers a massive range of self-management advice and exercise with a section on all of the most common issues – and when you click on each one, say knee pain or lower back pain, it gives you information on what can cause these problems, plus a very practical section – first understand the problem, second calm it down and third build it back up again, which I think is great!
Mental health support
Finally, there is fantastic support available for mental health.
People can make self-referrals to the talking therapies service, book into various different workshops, digital CBT, menopause and women’s wellbeing, social support, and also access a range of self-help support – from social anxiety and shyness, psychological advice for people living with long-term conditions, to advice for carers.
Visit NHS Talking Therapies.
I have started dropping these links into quite a lot of my clinic letters where relevant, and I’d encourage you to have a look and to share with your patients.
Change and progress at the mental health trust
Talking of mental health, I’d also like to flag some recent positive changes at NSFT. Our main mental health provider, Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT), has also undergone significant changes, starting with the appointment of a new substantive CEO and a strong executive team. Their recent restructure is already fostering optimism, and I am delighted to see the early impact of their new place-based teams, which were launched in December.
Each of the place-based teams has a dedicated Medical Director who works alongside operational, AHP and nursing leads:
- West Norfolk: Dr Zeyn Green-Thompson
- Central Norfolk: Dr Dan Dalton
- East Norfolk: Dr Sarah Maxwell
These teams have begun establishing local interface meetings to improve relationships, understanding and responsiveness across the system.
You may also have seen, the mental health trust has also just exited special measures.
Leadership Changes and Stewardship Roles
With most specialty advisor roles concluding in March and April, the advertisements for new stewardship roles are now live – take a look here.
We have surveyed the previous post holders and used this feedback, as well as best practice from other systems to change our approach. The new stewardship roles will be different in several ways:
- Fewer roles overall, but with most having an increased number of sessions for greater efficiency and impact.
- Each steward will oversee a broader area of clinical care, for increased flexibility.
- Stewards will be expected to coordinate multiple stakeholders and bring in relevant expertise as needed, rather than being the subject matter expert themselves in every area.
- The stewards will be permanent rather than fixed term positions to allow for long-term investment and integration into the ICB team.
These changes aim to provide stability, foster leadership development, and create a more cohesive system of support.
Please do have a look! And please contact Mike by emailing: m.smith155@nhs.net if you have any queries about stewardship in general, or go direct to the relent ICB team if you’re interested or have questions about any specific roles. Thank you for your ongoing commitment and contributions. Again, if you have thoughts or ideas to help shape our work, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Best wishes,
Frankie
Here is the full list of clinical steward roles: