It was great to visit Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, a relatively small trust with big ambitions for its population and workforce. The trust has around 5000 staff serving well over half a million people across the rural and coastal communities of the southwest peninsula. It provides mental health, learning disability and community services, and is one of only two county provider trusts.
I spent the morning with trust chair Margaret Schwarz and chief executive Debbie Richards. Debbie also represents mental health services on the ICB. Margaret and Debbie were honest about the challenges they face: recruiting to a remote, rural trust, PFI challenges, the pressing need for capital investment to renew parts of their estate, and for the needs of mental health, learning disability and community services to be prioritised and better understood. They were equally passionate in their resolve to innovate and overcome.
The trust's Bodmin Hospital site and services are a microcosm of opportunities and challenges faced by the wider Cornwall system. Despite the dedication and quality of staff who go above and beyond to provide care, it's clear mental health services are in real need of capital investment to make inpatient provision fit for purpose. This is compounded by the Bodmin site housing the only section 136 suite for the whole of Cornwall.
The site and the wider trust has seen significant investment and innovation in its Same Day Emergency Care, its Community Assessment and Treatment Unit and the Community Diagnostic Centre and Minor Injuries Unit. These deliver significant benefits: they provide a pressure valve for demand (particularly on overstretched A&E departments); additional capacity on site for all other services and crucially they create access to scanning, treatment and diagnosis geographically closer to many patients. While I was there, a patient freely offered up her delight that she was able to talk to a GP, be offered a scan within a very short timeframe and "not have to travel to Truro". This last comment sums up precisely what Cornwall Partnership is achieving.
I was struck by the dynamism, enthusiasm and loyalty of all the staff I met on my visit. Cornwall Partnership takes growing its own staff to the next level, using their dedication and local knowledge intelligently to innovate and develop services that truly understand and meet patient need.
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