From the Chair: What happens at a SLaM board meeting?
This week marked my first time chairing South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust’s public board meeting: a significant moment both personally and for the organisation. Since joining SLaM in June, I have seen first hand the depth of commitment across the Trust to delivering high-quality, compassionate care. Hearing directly from those with lived experience of mental health challenges is a clear testament to why our work matters, and why listening must be at the heart of leadership.
As SLaM’s Chair, my focus is on helping the Trust be a well-led organisation, one where we are empowered to drive meaningful change, and where every decision is rooted in the needs of the people we serve. I also believe that transparency and openness is an important part of how we work, and that includes what is discussed at the Board.
The Board is responsible for overseeing strategic performance, providing scrutiny and oversight of the Trust, and setting the conditions for a positive organisational culture throughout the Trust. The Board also provides governance of the Trust’s financial performance, to ensure long-term financial security and sustainability. In our meeting on 15 July we covered a number of important areas, that I’d like to highlight here.
What does the NHS 10 Year Plan mean for SLaM?
The NHS 10 Year Plan sets out the Government’s vision for transforming our health service to meet the needs of the public, both now and in the future. It outlines three significant shifts – moving care from hospitals to communities, focusing on prevention to enable people to live healthier lives, and pioneering more digital innovation across the NHS. The plan is less prescriptive on issues relating to mental health provision, which provides us with an opportunity to take the lead on what excellent, evidence-based mental health care could look like, both in the communities we serve, and nationally.
These shifts are already taking place across SLaM’s services, and through pioneering projects like the Lewisham Pilot, which will keep improving our community-based, integrated mental health care and support offer, in the places where people live. The 10 Year Plan will inform both the Trust’s strategy development and work with our partners over the coming months.
You can read about how SLaM is responding to the plan here.
Ensuring effective management
This meeting we were joined by the CQC, in an observational capacity as part of the preparation for their Well-Led review of our Trust planned for early October. The CQC have been inspecting a number of our services this year, and the forthcoming Well-Led inspection will scrutinise the leadership of the organisation, our governance and how we ensure our services are safe, inclusive and person-centred.
Staff survey action plan – listening and learning
The annual NHS staff survey will open later this year, and ahead of that, the Board considered the areas for focus highlighted in last year’s results. I strongly believe that a highly motivated workforce is key to delivering excellent patient care, which is why it is a matter of concern for me when staff do not feel that their voice is heard by the organisation, and that we’re not meeting our commitment to our service users, as expressed in the previous survey. We take staff feedback seriously and have been sharing more on how we respond to them; you can read more on the Great Place to Work and Care hub. At the meeting, the Board reviewed the Great Place to Work and Care action plan, which sets out how we will focus on tackling these concerns, and provides us with clear measures of success so we can ensure that everyone who works here feels valued and part of a positive workplace culture.
Financial turnaround – our progress and performance
Financial scrutiny and oversight are an important part of the Board’s role, and at this meeting we discussed the current financial performance. The Board noted the good progress being made across the organisation at delivering savings but also acknowledged the challenge of delivering the saving we needed to hit our financial target for 2025/26. I appreciate the efforts of teams across our services in contributing to meeting our targets; we want to ensure SLaM’s long-term financial sustainability, with a core focus on improving mental health care in the long term.
Board meetings are open to all
SLaM’s board meets on a bi-monthly basis; you can find out more about how the Board works, when our next meetings are, and read the board papers on our website.
