60 seconds with… Dr Girish Kunigiri, Medical Director
How are you settling into your role of Medical Director?
I’m so pleased to be here. I’ve received such a warm welcome from LPFT and colleagues across the system. I’ve been delighted to see so many passionate and dedicated staff working for one common cause - improving the experience of patients and staff. Over the past few weeks, with the help of my amazing team, I’m making real head way with strategic and operational roles.
What attracted you most to come to LPFT?
LPFT is a values based organisation and has an ambition to be outstanding. I believe there is real potential here. It is the first trust in the East Midlands to achieve foundation trust status and is named as the most rapidly improved organisation. It is currently ranked as one of the top 10 trusts in the country by its staff, has an active voice in the Integrated Care System (ICS) and has a great research profile with strong links with the newly established medical school and the university.
What do you hope to achieve in the role?
Quality and safety are the top priorities for me. To achieve this, I will ensure good clinical engagement with clinical leadership at all levels of the organisation and as a system partner. All service transformation will be co-produced and focused on patient outcome and experience, value-based care, and tackling health inequalities. In addition, I want to make sure our staff feel valued and empowered with excellent career opportunities.
How can we improve mental health support for Lincolnshire’s young people?
Lincolnshire County Council and Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT) are reviewing the services available locally and launched a survey in October, inviting children and young people, parents, carers and professionals to share their thoughts.
The feedback will be used to transform and improve services, helping children and young people to live independent, safe, healthy and fulfilling lives.
Amy Butler, Head of Service for Children and Young People at LPFT, said: “We are committed to improving our children’s mental health and emotional wellbeing services. Over the summer months, we held a number of workshops for young people and parents who have accessed our services and gathered feedback on how we can improve.
"We are hoping the surveys will enable young people, parents, carers and professional across Lincolnshire to share their views and to help us improve further.”
The survey can be found at www.letstalk.lincolnshire.gov.uk and runs to Monday 2 January 2023.
There are three versions of the survey, one for each of the following groups:
- children and young people
- parents and carers
- professionals working with children that live in Lincolnshire
Waiting Well - Support for people waiting for memory assessments
Our older people service now has three new staff regularly checking in with people who are waiting for memory assessments.
Steve Roberts, Associate Director for Older People Services explains: “We know that people are waiting longer than we’d like, so to see if there is any change in people’s needs and to identify if any immediate interventions are required, we call them regularly. It’s also a good opportunity to reassure people about the support available across the county.
“We’re also hoping that we’ll be able to remind people they can have the assessment digitally – getting seen much quicker.”
We’re also pleased to announce we have five new specialists who can do memory assessments in the county.
For more information about this visit www.lpft.nhs.uk/memoryassessment
Lincolnshire NHS Charity update
It has been a busy but proactive few months for the Lincolnshire NHS Charity and we are extremely thankful for the money raised.
In May, the Stamford peer support group held a community wellbeing day as part of mental health awareness Week, raising over £100.
We continue to be in awe of Andrew Clark, Legal Services Officer at LPFT, who continues to undertake a mammoth walking challenge to walk 1,200 miles in 12 months in aid of suicide prevention services.
The charity is also delighted that the Lincolnshire's Long Covid Information Hub, funded by the NHS Charities Together grant, is now officially online and already helping people.
Our team of runners for the London Landmarks Half Marathon are busy training ahead of the event which takes place in April 2023.
We can also announce that our NHS Big Tea event and raffle raised a total £1,510 to support the health and wellbeing of NHS staff across Lincolnshire! A huge thank you and well done to all involved.
Finally, please remember that if all of our supporters activated their AmazonSmile accounts and spent an average of £20 per month via Amazon that would generate over £10,000 in additional donations per year for our charity. It doesn’t cost you a penny and the instructions can be found below:
1. Open the Amazon app
2. Find ‘Settings’ in the main menu (☰)
3. Tap on ‘AmazonSmile’
4. Follow the on-screen instructions to turn on AmazonSmile on your phone.
Another busy term at Lincolnshire Recovery College
Lincolnshire Recovery College has been engaging with students and other stakeholders to consider the promotion and identity of the college. We received fantastic contributions at our focus groups and lots of exciting ideas to consider for the relaunch in 2023.
The college has also been collaborating with the Trust's equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) team and staff networks to co-produce new courses around EDI. This term, new courses including ‘Understanding LGBTQ+’ and an ‘Introduction to equality, diversity and inclusion’ were added to the timetable.
In other exciting news, the accredited (OCN Credit4Learning) peer support training has launched for peer support workers (PSWs), with the first cohort due to complete their training in January 2023. This has been co-produced with involvement from PSWs across the Trust and fantastic support from Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. This is a huge achievement for everyone involved, including Darcey Woods, Senior Peer Support Worker, who has worked tirelessly to ensure that the training meets the required standards of teaching, learning and assessment to gain its accreditation.
Volunteer services update
During the last few months, we have celebrated our volunteers who have received their Long Service Awards – totalling an amazing 33 years!
This included twelve years volunteer service for Chris from Langworth Ward, six years volunteer service for Katrina from Greyfriars, Grantham and six years volunteer service for Celia from the Recovery College. Celia had also previously volunteered as a Trust governor for nine years.
The celebrations continued with four volunteers being shortlisted for volunteer of the year as part of the annual LPFT Values Awards. Congratulations to all of our nominated shortlisted volunteers - Don, Celia, Dawn and Helen.
Helen Bussey was delighted to be voted Volunteer of the Year at the awards ceremony. Helen has volunteered with the Lincolnshire Recovery College for many years.
After receiving her award, she said: “Thank you, I had an amazing evening. I want to give a shout out to all the LPFT Volunteers - you are all winners too!”
We have recently invited volunteers to attend refresher training before resuming their voluntary roles and will be welcoming new volunteers into the service very soon.
All our volunteers have demonstrated commitment, teamwork, self-motivation and reliability, alongside developing skills, knowledge and supporting others.
We look forward to welcoming new volunteers to the Trust as and when opportunities arise.
Older people’s information event in Sleaford
Last month, we welcomed governors, staff and residents to come together to showcase mental health support services in the county. Run by the older people and frailty service, the event brought together local support groups, the Lincolnshire Recovery College and access to our services.
Comments from attendees included that the event was “well organised and excellent”, with “interesting workshops and great mixture of stalls”. The “conversations and collaboration was very valuable!” and overall it was “absolutely worth attending!”
One visitor commented: “The dementia workshop was so good. I am new to dementia (my Dad). Everything was explained in such a simple way and I have come away feeling I know a lot more about dementia. I know I can make a difference to my Dad, knowing although he won’t remember what he did in the day, I can leave him feeling happy.”
Get involved! Join our adult eating disorders involvement group
We are inviting people with lived experience, families and carers to help us shape our adult eating disorders service.
The adult eating disorders involvement group is a space for staff, people with lived experience of an eating disorder, carers and family members to work together to monitor, advise, and improve future practice by discussing topics and gathering experiences.
Including people who have used services, as well as families and carers is important to us. Your views are extremely valuable, and you are the best people to hold the adult eating disorders service to account, ensuring care is at a high standard and meets and represents as many people’s needs as possible.
The group currently meets monthly remotely.
If you would like to join the group or speak to a member of the team, please email lpft.involvement@nhs.net or call 07773 206341.
Children’s grief and loss support
In September, LPFT assumed the temporary financial support and oversight of the children and young people counselling service at the Lincolnshire Centre for Grief and Loss (LCGL), after the grant agreement between Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) and the centre came to a natural end.
LCGL is a charity that provides specific, confidential counselling support for children and young people aged 7 to 19, who are experiencing the unmanageable symptoms of grief and loss following a significant life event, such as the separation of their parents or the death of a loved one. They also provide a service for adults which is sponsored by the Lincolnshire Co-operative.
Amy Butler, Head of Service for Children and Young People Services at LPFT said: “We recognise the importance of grief and loss support for children and young people in Lincolnshire and we’re pleased to be able to continue to make this support available, which complements the mental health services we already provide for children and young people.
“We will be providing interim funding to continue the service whilst we work alongside LCC to review the wider emotional wellbeing and mental health support available for children and young people in the county and how services may be delivered in the future. This will help us ensure we are using all available resources in the most effective way to meet the mental health and emotional wellbeing needs of our local children and young people.”
For more information about LCGL please visit www.lcgl.org.uk.
Spreading the mental health message
We were delighted to team up with Lincoln City Football Club at their home game with Charlton on 8 October to promote the mental health support available in the county.
A number of players popped over to say hi and we had the great opportunity to talk to thousands of their fans on World Mental Health Day. So many people stopped to chat, get advice or share their own experiences.
Thank you to everyone who supported the SIREN study
The SARS-CoV2 immunity and reinfection evaluation (SIREN) study is a unique, large-scale partnership with NHS healthcare workers which was established in response to COVID-19. It provides vital information about immunity and vaccine effectiveness.
Participants took part in regular PCR and antibody testing for up to two years, helping to evaluate the immune response to COVID-19, build understanding of the protection offered by vaccines, and provide insight into COVID-19 reinfections in the UK.
LPFT was one of the first mental health trusts to opt into SIREN, enrolling 100 staff from across the county. Staff include administrative, clinical, housekeeping and estates staff, making this a truly inclusive study. Working closely with the pathology lab at United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT), we have processed a substantial number of samples and are proud to have taken part in this crucial research.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who supported the SIREN study, and who helped make this happen.
HAYLincolnshire is coming soon!
We will soon have in place a one stop shop for everything you need to boost your wellbeing in the county. We will be working with our community connectors to gather as much information as possible about great things going on in the county – gyms, cooking courses, walks, learning a new language. If you’d like us to share more information when it is ready, please email lpft.lincsmhtransformation@nhs.net.
