Help us make a final decision about dementia intensive support and hospital care in Lincolnshire

Following the temporary closure of Manthorpe ward in Grantham in April 2020 during the pandemic, we have been engaging with patients, staff, partners and the general public on possible ways to deliver intensive support and hospital care for people living with dementia in the future.

As the pandemic impacted longer than expected, we took a decision to pilot a new hospital at home approach and have spent the last few years evaluating its impact.

Following significant engagement and evaluation we have developed two options for how we could deliver services in the future and now want to consult with people living in Lincolnshire on next steps.

Paula Jelly, Director of Operations for Older People and Frailty services, said:

“We have seen a really positive impact from the introduction of the dementia home treatment service, and many people who would have previously been admitted to hospital are now able to be cared for in their own homes, rather than admitted into hospital.

“People have been telling us in our engagement over the last few years that they would prefer their loved ones to be cared for away from hospital as much as possible and we know that for someone living with dementia going into hospital can have a negative impact on their general health and wellbeing.

“The dementia home treatment service has been able to offer an intensive level of community support not previously available, by visiting someone’s home several times a day and supporting the carer with a range of tools and techniques to manage difficult behaviours and symptoms.

“Hospital care is still available at Langworth ward in Lincoln, should people need it, but what we’ve found is that fewer and fewer people have needed to go into hospital as a result of the additional home support.”

We are undertaking the consultation exercise from 17 February to 23 May 2025, and hope to gather as many people’s views as possible.

You can contribute your views via an online or paper-based survey, or by attending one of our public information events. The team will also be visiting a number of groups and organisations across the county who support people living with dementia to have their say.

Find out more about the consultation and where and when events are taking place at www.lpft.nhs.uk/dementia-consultation

Great progress being made at new mental health unit in Boston

We continue to develop our new state of the art mental health inpatient unit in Boston, which will replace the current Ward 12, an acute mental health ward, as well as be the home to the Boston Crisis and Home Treatment team.

Based at the Norton Lea site on London Road, the new unit will include a new 19-bed mixed-gender adult ward.

The project is now nearing the halfway point of the build phase, running on schedule and progressing well. The building's outer shell is progressing at pace and we anticipate this will be extensively weather-tight in the coming months. Work has also begun on the future bedrooms and ensuite facilities internally, and  external grounds and roadways have been partially developed, with the landscape to the south of the site also ready to receive grass seed in the spring.

As previously reported, the new ward is going to be called ‘Havenside’, after engagement with staff and patients from Ward 12, and we are pleased that the team has also helped name the new wellness café which will be known as 'Norton Tea'!

We look forward to further planning discussions around the café soon and starting to do menu planning and logo designs with support and engagement from the Ward 12 Patient Group.

The Trust is also collaborating with the University of Lincoln to develop artwork for the new ward and we will be engaging the local community and college in its development.

In other news, the Building Together Focus Group (BTFG) has also been shortlisted in The Lincolnshire Care Awards under the ‘Co-producing Together’ category. The group consists of experts by experience who work alongside the project team to offer feedback, comments and views on the design and build of the new wards. They have been involved in decisions such as furnishings, signage, technology and much more.

To join BTFG or to find out about other opportunities to be involved, please email lpft.involvement@nhs.net or call the Engagement team on 01529 222245.

The project continues to be a fully collaborative experience for all involved. We remain fully focused on providing the best possible healthcare facility and a therapeutic environment for future service users.

New ‘Understanding Co-production’ course launches at Lincolnshire Recovery College

The Recovery College provides an opportunity to learn about living well with mental health ourselves and supporting the wellbeing of those around us. Courses are free and available to anyone aged 16+ who feels they would benefit from learning from those who have personal lived experiences of, and professional expertise in, the topic.

Following on from pilot sessions, this month the Lincolnshire Recovery College is proud to announce the launch of an exciting new course: Understanding Co-production. Developed in collaboration with the Adult and Older Adult Community Mental Health Transformation Programme and The Lincolnshire Mental Health Co-production Network, this course offers a unique opportunity to learn about the principles and practices of co-production.

The course is designed to be accessible to everyone, and is ideal for those interested in exploring how lived experiences can shape and improve services. Members of The Lincolnshire Mental Health Co-production Network are integral to the delivery of this course, serving as co-facilitators and sharing their diverse experiences and perspectives.

By participating, learners will gain a deeper understanding of how co-production empowers individuals to work alongside professionals to design and deliver services that truly meet the needs of communities. The course provides a space for people to come together and explore their understanding of co-production. Learners will have the opportunity to explore what co-production is (and isn’t), consider the benefits and challenges of this approach and work together to discover potential solutions. Throughout the course there are opportunities to practise working in a co-productive way.

People have described the course as ‘thought provoking’, ‘informative and genuinely enjoyable’, ‘inspiring and well delivered’ and ‘impactful and insightful’. They have noted that they enjoyed the interactive elements and content of the course which helped to increase their understanding of co-production and how to include it within services and to recognise the benefits it can bring.

You may be working in healthcare services, or you may be a member of the public or someone who uses services who is thinking about getting involved in co-production. Come along and learn together – this fun and interactive session is open to anyone who would like to know more about co-production.

For further details about this and other Recovery College courses, visit www.lpft.nhs.uk/recovery-college.

Additionally, if you’d like to share your lived experiences as a service user or carer and take part in co-production opportunities, explore www.shinelincolnshire.com/opportunities/co-production or visit our Involvement pages here.

Mental health support boosted for Lincolnshire young people

We are delighted to share that a number of great enhancements to our local children and young people mental health offer have been made available across the county.

Lumi Nova:

Lumi Nova, a new digital therapeutic game for children aged 7 to 12 who are struggling with worries, fears or anxiety, has been made available to families.

This service, which is free for families living or attending school in Lincolnshire, is being launched in collaboration between Lincolnshire County Council, NHS Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board and Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

Lumi Nova combines Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) with responsible, age-appropriate mobile gaming to provide early intervention, therapeutic support for childhood anxiety. Lumi Nova is instantly accessible via a tablet or mobile device and suitable for anyone experiencing mild to moderate anxiety. It uses nationally recommended advice and techniques and is safe and secure to use.

Co-designed with children, parents, NHS clinicians and mental health experts, Lumi Nova helps children build resilience and learn lifelong skills through a self-guided, inclusive and fun experience. More information about Lumi Nova is here, including how it could support your family. The Lumi Nova app is available on Android and iOS.

Mental health liaison service for young people expands

The Mental Health Liaison Service (MHLS) within our children and young people mental health services has expanded to provide dedicated support for young people attending Boston and Grantham hospitals.

The service focuses on a more positive experience for young people and families attending emergency departments, offering more face-to-face support and linking up with our colleagues at United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals (ULTH) to work collaboratively to support young people who are admitted to a ward.

The teams assess and support young people up to the age of 18 who present in a hospital-based setting such as A&E or on physical health wards. They provide assessment of mental health, help to signpost to other mental health services and support networks, as well as play a key role in discharge planning for young people, supporting a smooth transition to community services. Find out more about Children and Young People’s MHLS.

Waiting times

We are proud to say that waiting times in our Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) are reducing, after being higher than we would like.

CAMHS supports young people aged 0 to 18 years who are experiencing mental health difficulties and are finding it hard to cope with everyday life.

Compared to last year, there has been a 67.3% reduction in those waiting over 35 weeks and an 82.1% reduction since we started measuring waiting times in June 2022.

Since January 2024, we have seen a reduction of 52% in young people waiting over 30 weeks for treatment and have had no young person waiting 52 weeks or more since April 2024.

Our CAMHS teams have worked collaboratively, implementing innovative improvements to reduce waiting times over the past two years, while also improving the patient experience when waiting. These are continuously reviewed, and teams are passionate about ensuring that young people and their families are at the heart of everything that they do. Find out more about CAMHS by using this link.

Celebrating success

Congratulations to our latest LPFT Heroes

Congratulations to our latest LPFT Heroes! Every quarter, we celebrate a team and an individual winner who have been chosen by the Executive Team from the staff recognition nominations made by colleagues. 

Our latest LPFT Heroes are Faye Hunter and the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit Housekeeping team!

Faye is the deputy ward manager at Langworth Ward. She is a brilliant leader and is always visible and present during both the good and the more challenging times on the ward. Her team always feels listened to and supported, and her care and compassion towards both staff and patients has been rated as “above and beyond the call of duty”. Faye will always go the extra mile to ensure that patients receive person-centred and quality care, and she is passionate about her team and the care they provide.

The Housekeeping team on the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) have turned the place around after extensive building works and have continued to work hard while the works have continued around them. The team has gone on to receive five stars on the cleaning audit, despite the challenges they have faced. They are a credit to LPFT and the rest of the PICU team.

Lincolnshire Care Awards 2024: good luck to all our nominees!

The Lincolnshire Care Awards 2024 has recognised several outstanding contributions by teams and individuals across LPFT. Liz Holmes, an Assistant Practitioner in the Older Adults Community Mental Health Team in Grantham, has been shortlisted for the Outstanding Partner Award. Liz provides crucial support to dementia patients in local care homes, advising on non-pharmacological approaches and monitoring medications.

The Community Mental Health Transformation Team has been shortlisted for the Co-Producing Together Award. This team has made significant strides forward since the inception of the Lincolnshire Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Transformation Programme. Their achievements include establishing 15 wellbeing hubs, 19 satellite sites and 32 roving outreach initiatives. They have also launched the H.A.Y. (How Are You) Lincolnshire website and developed numerous local projects and partnership groups.

Additionally, the Every Voice Patient Partners and Building Together Focus Group have been shortlisted in the Co-Producing Together category. These groups have been recognised for their effective co-production efforts, including supporting the design of new acute wards and various mental health projects. Millie Cave, a member of Every Voice, expressed her gratitude for the recognition and emphasised the importance of empowering those who are often silenced.

Best of luck to all the nominees, who have all been invited to the Gala Award Evening on Thursday 27 March.

Congratulations to our newly crowned Queen’s Nurses!

Our very own Eleanor Duke, service lead in East and Coastal Lincolnshire for Adult Community Mental Health Services, and Lesley Hutton, clinical lead nurse for Older People and Frailty Division, have been officially crowned as Queen’s Nurses.

The Queen's Nursing Institute is the oldest professional nursing organisation in the UK and is believed to be the oldest nursing charity in the world.

The process of acquiring a Queen's Nurse title involves taking on board accounts from patients, carers and colleagues.

Both Lesley and Eleanor said:

“The Queens Nursing Institute offers workshops in leadership and development as well as networking and wider opportunities, but the greatest benefit is the increased confidence and value that you feel as a representative of the QNI Network.

“Being a Queen’s Nurse means supporting person-centred care, with quality improvement at the heart of that, and having an awareness of how improvement can positively impact the care we give which is received by patients, relatives, carers and visitors."

Some of the key characteristics of a Queen's Nurse are:

• Person-centred care: Proving holistic care that is tailored to the needs of the individual.
• Integrity: They demonstrate honesty and compassion.
• Role model: They inspire their peers and colleagues.
• Commitment to learning: They are committed to developing community nursing.
• Diversity, equality and inclusiveness: They promote these values and respect everyone they come into contact with.

A big congratulations to them both!

60 seconds with... Claire Wheat, Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist

Please introduce yourself.

I’m Claire Wheat, and I’m a cognitive behavioural psychotherapist with the Perinatal Community Mental Health team. By background, I’m a mental health nurse and I have worked for LPFT for 13 years. Ten of those years I have worked within the Perinatal team.

Tell us a bit more about yourself.

I have a passion for both road and trail running and I will be taking part in my third London Marathon this year. I have two daughters and two dogs, including a new puppy, so due to that and running commitments, I am kept busy outside of work!

Can you explain what your role involves and is it different to roles you’ve held before?

I retrained as a cognitive behavioural psychotherapist in 2020. I work alongside the wider multi-disciplinary team, delivering one-to-one psychological interventions to people who are pregnant and up to two years postnatal.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

The most rewarding part of my role is seeing the difference that psychological intervention can make to clients and their families, especially at a time of their life that is so significant.

I feel privileged to have been with the team for ten years and to have been part of the development of the service. We started with eight staff and now we are a team of over 50 across Lincolnshire. I work alongside a team of caring and compassionate professionals who support each other as well as the clients we work with. We also have the joy of occasional baby cuddles!

How are the Perinatal team celebrating their 10th anniversary?

To mark our milestone, we are arranging a Perinatal Conference in May. This will be open to health professionals and will coincide with Maternal Mental Health Week. We have some wonderful bakers in our team so we will no doubt be celebrating in the way we do best - by eating cake! Keep checking the LPFT social media sites for more information along the way.

About the Perinatal Mental Health Team

As a new parent, it is important that you look after your own physical and emotional wellbeing, so that in turn you can look after your family.

The aim of our team is to identify, assess and treat serious mental illness in the perinatal period by working together with you, your families and health professionals.

The team consists of specialist doctors, consultant psychiatrists, specialist pharmacists, community mental health nurses, occupational therapists, social workers, nursery nurses, peer support workers and specialist psychologists.

Find out more about the Perinatal Mental Health Team.

An update from our Council of Governors

We would like to kick off the new year with some reminders of our upcoming Council of Governors Committee and Council of Governors Representation Committee meetings.

These meetings are streamed live or held in public and, therefore, anyone is welcome to watch or come along. There is an opportunity to submit or ask questions for the first 15 minutes of the meeting.

These meetings invite you to learn about our activities as a trust and ask our governors any questions you might have.

For more information about the roles and responsibilities of our governors, and more about the Council of Governors in general, visit our Committee Terms of Reference page.

Council of Governors meetings

Our Council of Governors meets at least four times a year.

Below are the dates of the upcoming 2025 meetings:

• Thursday 24 April, 4pm to 7pm (The Learning and Development Centre, Sleaford)
• Thursday 24 July, 4pm to 6pm (via MS Teams)
• Thursday 23 October, 4pm to 7pm (Learning and Development Centre, Sleaford)

You can find out more about our Council of Governors meetings here.

Council of Governors Representation Committee meetings

Our Council of Governors Representation Committee also meets at least four times a year. It draws together the work of Trust involvement, governors, members, innovations and ideas into one forum. It is governor-led and enables them to perform their general duties in representing the membership of the Trust and the wider public.

The Council of Governors Representation Committee meetings also host information sessions on our services, showcasing a different service in each meeting. These sessions also each spotlight a governor, who speaks about their experience and their role. The most recent meeting was held on 6 January. The recording can be viewed online here.

Below are the dates of the upcoming 2025 meetings:

• Monday 17 March, 10am to 12pm (via MS Teams). Guest speaker: Eve Baird, chief operating officer at LPFT, with an update on Autism pathways
• Monday 2 June, 10am to 12pm (via MS Teams). Guest speakers: Amy Butler, head of service for Children and Young People (CYP) Services; and Ana Iosifescu, CYP keyworker and staff governor for Specialist Services, with an update on CYP Services
• Monday 22 September, 10am to 12pm (via MS Teams). Guest speaker: Op COURAGE, veterans' mental health service provider
• Monday 8 December, 10am to 12pm (via MS Teams). Guest speaker TBC

You can find out more about our Council of Governors Representation Committee Meetings here.

Rachel Wright, Shine Lincolnshire CEO, shares her experience of being an LPFT stakeholder governor

Our Council of Governors Representation Committee meetings are an excellent opportunity for sharing individual experiences. Rachel Wright, chief executive officer of Shine Lincolnshire, recently shared her personal experience of her role, its strengths and benefits, as well as some of the challenges she faces.

Rachel has a background in law and business leadership. Together with her passion for helping the community, she felt it provided her with the knowledge and skills to build strong working relationships between LPFT and Shine Lincolnshire.

She said: “I’ve worked in the third sector for 25 years, so, while academically my background is actually law and business and leadership, I returned to university with a passion for communities.

“Community regeneration is my personal passion – that’s why I do what I do – and hopefully I bring that skill to my role as a stakeholder governor.”

Rachel highlighted the key strengths, benefits and challenges that had been associated with her appointed stakeholder governor position.

She emphasised how she is well-positioned to represent LPFT and its members, especially with third sector contacts, and that she was actively recruiting members and sharing membership information.

Rachel said: “[Being a stakeholder governor] has given me a greater understanding of the Trust and how the Trust works, because I think to really represent and to be here for our members and our communities, I have to really understand the function of the Trust and the complexities to its day-to-day operations.

“It’s allowed improved partnership working – I think the relationship between Shine and LPFT has definitely strengthened and benefited from the stakeholder role. Working as a governor has allowed me to see behind the scenes a little bit more to understand those complexities.”

In terms of the challenges she has faced in her governor role, Rachel mentioned the challenges of balancing her governor role with her position at Shine Lincolnshire, as the expectations and insights are often presented differently. Despite these difficulties, she explained it has helped her grow personally and better manage priorities in both roles.

“In being a stakeholder governor, the challenge can sometimes be remembering that when I sit within this role, I’m here to represent the interests of LPFT, not necessarily the interests of my organisation directly, and sometimes wearing different hats can prove challenging and you have to remember the priority of where you’re sitting.

“Probably the only other challenge is recognising that, as a stakeholder governor, the reason why you’re involved is probably slightly different to elected governors, and so sometimes that insight can be slightly different – but that’s been really positive to learn from.”

Rachel expressed her enjoyment in being a governor and said she feels a sense of achievement and success within her role.

“Overall, my experience has been really positive and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it so far. I’ve learnt a lot, and I think Shine as an organisation has been able to take a lot from the experience, and that I’ve been able to help shape our future.”

Shine Lincolnshire is a countywide charity which aims to support people with poor mental health to live well through accessing a range of support services, working with service users, carers and other agencies in Lincolnshire. Find out more by visiting their website at www.shinelincolnshire.com. To find out more about our governors, visit our Council of Governors page here.