Our vision, strategy and values

We have developed some additional resources to help explain our strategy and our priorities for 2024 to 2025.

The image and simplified document outline our super six intentions and what we aim deliver in year one.

Introducing the super six:

1. We will be known for our operational and clinical excellence. Our patients and service users will always be our top priority. We  will improve patient experience, tackle waiting times and they will receive consistently excellent services regardless of where they access them.
2. Our staff will feel valued and supported. We will attract and retain the best people through an inclusive culture which supports wellbeing and engagement.
3. We will support people with their 'total health' by providing support for their physical health, mental health, learning disability and addiction needs in a coordinated way, removing the need for so many separate appointments.
4. We will increase value - achieving the best outcomes from the resources available. By working with other providers and redesigning our services we will reduce waste, improve sustainability and become more efficient.
5. We will use data, insight and technology to transform care, making our services more targeted, effective and personalised, giving people greater control of their health and wellbeing and extending the reach of our specialist teams.
6. We will lead world class research and innovation in mental health and wellbeing. We will shorten the time it takes for effective treatment and interventions to reach those patients and service users who would benefit the most.

Click on the image below to read it in full.

Whilst we are very proud of the quality improvement we have achieved to date, in the spirit of continuous improvement and striving for perfect care, we recognise there is always room for more.

Our understanding of what it means to ‘strive for perfect care’ is changing.  It no longer means just striving for perfection in an episode of care, but also means becoming more preventative and integrated in our approach, seeing people in the context of their families, their communities and their neighbourhoods, not as problems to be solved but as assets to be invested in.

We characterise the next phase of our improvement journey as being about embedding quality improvement techniques and results, including in our  newly acquired services, so that we move from having some great examples of outstanding care to more systematic quality improvement that is everywhere in our organisation.

To reflect this quality improvement in the mainstream of our services, we continue to aim to have an overall CQC rating ‘Outstanding’ rating for our services by 2024.

We use a zero based approach to deliver significant safety improvements in places that have historically been in the ‘too difficult box’.  By framing our ambitions in this way, we can unlock the talent we have.  This culture of continuous improvement will be critical in ensuring recovery from Covid-19 pandemic for service users, staff and our services.

Our Perfect Care goals for 2023 to 2024 are:

• ZERO restrictive practice
• ZERO suicide
• ZERO harm from medication
• ZERO falls in our care
• ZERO acceptance of racism, discrimination and unacceptable behaviours (see more in the Our People part of this plan)

Welcome to our new Operational Plan 2023 to 2024. This plan sets out our annual priorities to move us closer to achieving our vision. This year, we will balance operational excellence in our services today, whilst making opportunities to get ahead for the future.  This will enable our vision for perfect whole-person care,  which helps people of all ages live healthier lives.

In the year ahead, we will ensure a significant focus on the basics – high quality well delivered services so that wherever people access Mersey Care services they receive a consistent and reliable response. This means a focus on patient safety; waiting times and access; physical health in mental health care; resilience in our urgent care and community services; effective use of our inpatient beds and seamless children and young people services which take a family approach.  We will implement focused prevention actions and co-ordinate care better.  We will target inequalities in access, experience and outcomes and continue our journey to becoming an anti-racist organisation. 

None of this will be possible without the skills and commitment of the people who work at Mersey Care.  We will continue to prioritise staff health and wellbeing and focus on engagement and staff satisfaction, alongside addressing our persistent workforce challenges.

Work continues to finalise the finance and investment plan for 2023 to 2024 and our plan will be updated to reflect this in due course.

Mersey Care has developed into one of the largest providers of mental health and community health in the country. Below are a couple of illustrations of what we do and the services we provide:

Mersey Care has expanded significantly since earning Foundation Trust status in 2016. Since then we've had several important milestones to celebrate, including the opening of Rowan View Medium Secure Hospital and Hartley Hospital.

We've also added Calderstones Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool Community Health NHS Trust and North West Boroughs Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust to Mersey Care's portfolio.

The enlarged organisation will bring significant benefits for our patients, staff and the wider healthcare economy and unique opportunities to ensure the provision of high-quality, integrated physical and mental health services across a large footprint, helping to meet the growing demand for out-of-hospital services.

The below illustration gives an idea of how the Trust has grown year on year.

During this period of expansion, Mersey Care's staff, teams and estate has also increased, which is illustrated below: