Chief Executive's Column - April 2021

April 2021 marks the start of a significant year for us at Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS).

Amidst the ongoing response and recovery from COVID-19, our trust will be celebrating its tenth anniversary.

In 2011, LCHS was established as an independent NHS Trust to provide general and specialist community healthcare services within local communities.

In real terms, this means caring for thousands of people each week in community hospitals, clinics and people’s own homes through teams of dedicated doctors, nurses and therapists.

The people we see might be managing long term conditions, need wound care, or rehabilitation for illness or injury. You might come to us to support your sexual health, or many of you may see us through our urgent care services when you need help quickly for injuries or illnesses but it isn’t an emergency.

Looking at the highlights from the last 10 years, we have undoubtedly made a positive impact on the health of people in Lincolnshire.

Since 2018, LCHS has been rated as ‘outstanding’ overall by our regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), when looking at whether services are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led.

We have welcomed new services, such as The Butterfly Hospice to support palliative and end of life care in the Boston area, and our award-winning Children’s Rapid Response Respiratory Service across the whole county to support children with complex physical disabilities to avoid hospital admission with recurring chest infections.

We have transformed urgent care through the introduction of our nationally-recognised Clinical Assessment Service, supporting people to access advice and treatment quickly over the phone via NHS 111cand prevent unnecessary visits to busy A&E departments.

More recent developments have seen the introduction of Urgent Treatment Centres across the county and in Peterborough.

We have worked closely with partner organisations to make care more joined-up and to be more proactive in providing support. A great example of this is with local care homes, ensuring carers have the knowledge and skills to identify the first signs of a problem.

We have also worked alongside thousands of our trust members as we strive to improve and develop more responsive local services.

Our ethos and commitment remains unchanged.

We are well-placed to play a leading role in the future of our NHS, particularly with ambitions to support people to independently and proactively manage their health closer to home.

We look forward to seeing what the next decade will bring to us and thank everyone for their ongoing support as we get there.