Trust Chief Executive appointed lead for local Sustainability and Transformation Plan

Simon Wright, Chief Executive of The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH) has been appointed the local lead for Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin’s Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP).

The recently-announced 44 STP footprints are geographic areas that will bring local health and care leaders, organisations and communities together to develop local blueprints for improved health, care and finances over the next five years.

Here, Simon talks about the Plan, and why it is needed:

“In December, NHS shared-planning guidance set out a new approach to help ensure that health and care services are planned by place - rather than solely around individual institutions - and over a period of five years, rather than just a single year. Central to this guidance is the design and delivery of Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs).

"Last week, details were published of 44 ‘footprint’ areas that will bring local health and care leaders, organisations and communities together to develop STPs - local blueprints for improved health, care and finances over the next five years.

"One of these STPs will cover Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin, and I am honoured to have been named the lead officer for our health system. It will be my responsibility to work with partners in developing and co-ordinating work on the STP for our area to help transform health and care over the next five years.

"The STP will help drive a genuine and sustainable transformation in health and care outcomes, and help build and strengthen local relationships, enabling a shared understanding of where we are now, where we want to be in 2021 and the concrete steps that need to be taken in order to get us there. We keep saying that this winter, our health and social care services have been under greater pressure than ever, and that’s because it is true. Our hospitals, community units and GP practices have been extremely busy for a long period, which causes delays for our patients. The increase in complexity has presented real challenges for social services and, as a system, we need to work together to build sustainable solutions for our aging population.

"We are very concerned about this and are working hard with system partners and commissioners to manage demand in more suitable locations than A&E, to support the timely discharge of frail elderly patients once their acute care is over, and to treat more patients through an ambulatory pathway enabling them to avoid a hospital admission.

"The headlines always seem to focus on A&E, so it would be easy to assume that the problem is just with our Emergency Departments. This just isn’t the case. It is about the whole system of urgent and emergency care in our county.

"Too many people are attending hospital for urgent care, too many are being admitted and too many are spending too long in our hospitals as they face delays that are beyond their control before they can move back home or into more appropriate care closer to home.

"We need to work with our population to remove social isolation, develop and support our communities and neighbourhoods and create social capital with a focus on wellbeing not illness.

"In my role as Chief Executive of this Trust, and as the local STP lead, I am just a part of the wider jigsaw. Many other pieces need to be put into place if we are to genuinely tackle the problems we face and create sustainable services. I don’t underestimate the task at hand, but I am looking forward to facing this challenge with my colleagues from across the health system so that we can deliver the care we want for our patients, families and carers.”