Introduction and overview

This section of the annual report will cover:

• Welcome from the Chair
• Trust purpose
• About the Trust
• Our Work
• Our strategic aims and objectives
• The LCHS Way

Welcome to the Annual Report and Accounts for Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS).

The last year has been remarkable in so many ways and one that I hope has been defined by unity and strength.

We have stood unified in our response to the Covid-19 pandemic with partner organisations and continue to be humbled by the determination, dedication and resilience of colleagues delivering services across Lincolnshire and Peterborough.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank colleagues for their unwavering support to our patients and each other during this time. The public and Lincolnshire community have been tremendous and whose actions, fundraising and best wishes lifted spirits on the darkest of days.

Beyond the exceptional circumstances of Covid-19 our teams and individuals have continued to deliver safe, quality services, along with many service developments and accolades.

From the introduction of Urgent Treatment Centres to delivering award-winning physiotherapy services to children with complex physical disabilities, LCHS continues to shape responsive services to the needs of our communities.

We continue to build partnerships that make significant contributions to Lincolnshire’s health and care system and therefore our patients. This supports our ambitions to operate cohesively as an Integrated Care System (ICS).

The year of 2020-21 has undoubtedly presented challenges as well as representing exciting progress.

Trust purpose

Lincolnshire Community Health Service NHS Trust (LCHS) provides a wide range of community care across Lincolnshire meeting the physical health needs of our community as close to their homes as possible.

We have started our journey of working more closely with our partners across the Lincolnshire Health and Care System to become an Integrated Care System (ICS) and build on the good examples of partnership working before and during Covid-19. The Better Lives Lincolnshire Alliance, the Lincolnshire ICS, will help organisations in Lincolnshire to work together to provide better, more joined-up care to our community.

Our focus on the NHS Long Term Plan priorities and local population health needs continue to provide the opportunities to make positive changes to healthcare in Lincolnshire ensuring care is close to home and acute care is focussed on those people in most need.

We will see a renewed and refreshed focus on pathways of care developed with partners and patients through the Better Lives Lincolnshire Alliance.  Working even closer with GP practices and their overarching Primary Care Networks (PCNs) using population health information and data to make sure health funding is directed to those that need it, in the most efficient way. This will support patients and their families to manage and own their healthcare needs, enabling them to look after themselves to get better quicker and see great outcomes.

The Trust has a wide portfolio of healthcare services that includes:

• community nursing to support patients to get better care closer to home
• children and young people’s services, including children in care (previously known as looked after children) and children’s therapy services
• electronic assistive technology service (EATS)
• general and specialist integrated community nursing immunisation and vaccination services
• inpatient beds and outpatient clinics
• four community hospitals
• urgent care services including Urgent Treatment Centres at Louth, Skegness, Lincoln, Boston and Peterborough which were joined by our new, upgraded urgent care services at Gainsborough and Spalding
• jointly provided temporary urgent treatment centre at Grantham Hospital
• musculoskeletal (MSK) physiotherapy services
• occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech and language therapy
• podiatry service
• primary care services in Boston and Spalding
• safeguarding services for both children and adults
• Integrated sexual health and contraceptive health

About the Trust

LCHS cares for patients across the whole of Lincolnshire and parts of Peterborough. The services we deliver are commissioned by a number of organisations including NHS Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), the Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group and Lincolnshire County Council (LCC).

Our services are delivered from over 64 different sites; our main sites are:

Head Office – Beech House, Lincoln;

• Lincoln County Hospital, Louth;
• John Coupland Hospital, Gainsborough;
• Johnson Community Hospital, Spalding;
• Bourne Health Clinic;
• Riversdale Health Clinic; and
• Lindon House, Lincoln.

Our Work

We deliver a diverse portfolio of community healthcare services through a range of trained healthcare professional including nurses, allied health professionals, public health professionals and GPs enabling great care across our communities. Our care is delivered through our 1,970 committed staff. Throughout the last year our amazing workforce have been an integral part of the system-wide response to Covid-19. This included supporting a mutual-aid approach where 281 staff members were redeployed across the system to where they were most needed, with retraining to care for patients in a different healthcare setting or alternative role in the fight against the virus.

This crucial resource provides high quality clinical care and expertise, coordinates, connects and advocates for patients and carers in addition to driving digital innovation to improve access to services. This includes core areas such as:

• Leading integration opportunities
• Supporting people with long term conditions
• Frailty and end of life care, including better dedicated care home support
• Urgent care
• Specialists in prevention, case management, risk management and appropriate discharge
• Details of our services are available on our website.

Our strategic aims and objectives

The LCHS Way

Our approach to care and working together is important to us. All our staff work in an ‘LCHS Way’. This reinforces the right behaviours and approach we take in everything we do, contributing to better care for patients and a better working environment in our Trust.

The LCHS Way is “we listen, we care, we act, we improve”

We listen: we engage with everyone we work with | we are united | we are always positive

We care: everyone is valued, respected and developed | knowledge and skills are nurtured | success is celebrated

We act: Clear goals and the right resources | freedom coupled with accountability | emphasis on simplicity

We improve: we are creative, resourceful and innovative | integration & collaboration is the way forward | we’re always striving to do better