Welcome to the summary page of our recent board meeting
This section includes an overview of the main discussions, decisions, and future plans presented during the meeting. This summary is intended to inform those who were unable to attend and offer a brief review of the latest developments. This briefing aims to keep you informed of the discussions at our Trust Board. To read the 2026 papers, please see the Board agenda pack. Please note this briefing does not replace the official Board minutes, which will be published in due course on the website.
National and system update (Chair, Isla Wilson)
James Murray MP has been appointed Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, following Wes Streeting MP's resignation from the post.
The NHS modernisation bill was introduced to parliament in the King’s Speech on 13 May. This includes a range of proposals previously set out by the government, including creating a leaner structure in the NHS with changes to NHS England and ICBs.
A new cross-government 10-year mental health strategy is being prepared, with a call for evidence issued by 10th July. CWP will be responding to this call for evidence, individually and as part of a wider system response.
Attendance at the North West Suicide Prevention Conference run by The Martin Gallier Project. Celebrating a large number of organisations working together in the North West, with good discussions on the day about "gaps" in this space.
Regional visits. We were delighted to welcome NHS Wales’ Joint Commissioning Committee to Seren Lodge (our mother and baby mental health unit) recently. We also hosted a visit from Louise Shepherd, NHS England Regional Director, to Seren Lodge, the Mental Health Crisis Assessment Centre and Ancora House, including our new Sapphire Day unit.
Quarterly MP meeting. We recently held our quarterly MP meeting, which was well attended by our local MPs. We discussed a range of topics including our medium-term plan, partnership working and our lead provider collaboratives. A number of our local MPs expressed an interest in visiting Trust services, including MP Andrew Cooper who visited Crook Lane and our CYP colleagues.
CWP welcome Roger Wilson. Weare delighted to welcome Roger Wilson as Interim Director of People. Roger brings a wealth of experience, most recently serving as Acting Chief People Officer at East Cheshire NHS Trust.
Partnership working (Chief Executive, Tim Welch)
CWP and Mersey Care – working in partnership for our population. We are continuing to make good progress in our partnership with Mersey Care, with key work now underway to help us work more closely together for the benefit of the communities we serve. The first meeting of the Partnership Executive Programme Board earlier this month marked an important step forward and we have an agenda item on today’s Board meeting to discuss a revised Memorandum of Understanding.
Landmark achievement for local mobile health service. Our ground-breaking local mobile health service has recently provided its 2000th cervical screening as part of a programme aiming to reduce health inequalities in our region. The Living Well Service has also been providing cervical screenings for local women and people with a cervix across Cheshire and Merseyside. Since January 2026 – it has further expanded into Lancashire, providing clinics in Blackburn, Blackpool, Hyndburn and Preston.
Upton Lea Integrated Hub, Chester, has opened. A £5.3m refurbishment to enable more joined-up working and improved care for patients, across both adult physical and mental health pathways and children, young people, and families is now complete. Upton Lea Integrated Hub, based on the Countess of Chester Health Park, is now the new home for the following services, all of which provide crisis alternatives to A&E:
All-age 24/7 Mental Health Crisis Line
Adult and Children and Young People Mental Health Crisis teams
West Cheshire Community Mental Health and Home Treatment teams
Out-of-hours GP and Community Nursing services
Cardiac Rehabilitation service
The extension of Upton Lea also includes a new Place of Safety for people detained by Police under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act, which is due to open later this year.
New specialist inpatient unit for young people. Our new specialist inpatient unit for young people with eating disorders has opened in Chester. Sapphire Ward is based at Ancora House at the Countess of Chester Health Park, alongside the Sapphire Eating Disorder Day Service. Commissioned by LevelUp - Cheshire and Merseyside’s young people and families lead provider collaborative (LPC), the new unit will offer 24-hour, intensive support for young people aged 13 to 18 with an eating disorder diagnosis across Cheshire and Merseyside.
Funding for neighbourhood hubs. In line with expanding neighbourhood‑based mental health provision and developing 24/7 community hubs - the first round of funding has been secured for a new hub at Winsford and work underway to scope options in other parts of Cheshire and Wirral.
Coming up:On 26th June we will be holding the second in a series of Leadership for the Future conferences, exploring “leadership skills, challenges and opportunities within partnership working to achieve the best outcomes for the people we serve”.
Improvement forum update:
CWPi marked its first anniversary on 1 April.
The focus remains on continuous improvement, building both capability and capacity. Plans include “train the trainer” activity to expand capacity, with staff encouraged to take part in improvement huddles. An in-house quality training programme is in development.
Moments of brilliance reflects the Trust’s improvement strategy driving positive outcomes, fostering staff well-being and generating encouraging feedback.
Digital story: Pam's story
Pam's son Kurt and his journey with the Mental Health Intensive Support Team team - "I've been in a dizzy world".
Gary Flockhart, Director of Nursing said: "Its interesting to hear Pam's reflections on the proactive approach - how that links in with addressing health inequalities and prevention over treatment (10 year health plan) and how MIST are promoting that."
Faouzi Alam, Medical Director, said: "From a diagnostic point of view, we test for the antibody Pam mentions and the treatment significantly changes the persons life."
Julie Higgins, NED, said: "Faouzi and I visited the MIST team recently and I was struck by the development of the service and how focussed it is, in its approach - especially around population health outcomes. We talked about getting the cultural work MIST have done, aligned with the national 10 year health plan, into other parts of our services."
Isla Wilson, Chair, "The term "playing around with anti-psychotics" really stuck with for me - the idea that there was a "careless approach" really didn't feel good. It is, however, positive to hear how our MIST team really work with a family and the importance of constant questioning and curiosity."
6 key alerts:
Falls (inpatients)
Urgent Community Response (2-hour performance)
Clinically Ready for Discharge (CRFD)
Non-urgent waits (community MH)
Sickness absence
Inpatient verbal violence
Sickness absence 6.8%, with ongoing improvement actions
Performance pressures linked across system factors (e.g. housing, capacity, demand)
Trust remains in Oversight Framework (NOF) Segment 3
Positive improvements:
72-hour follow-up improving
Increase in CYP access
29% reduction in agency spend (£18.2m → £12.9m)
Introducing a “double alert” system (target + SPC) for better interpretation
Further work to align IPR with BAF and medium-term plan
Suzanne Edwards, Director of Operations: "We are currently awaiting the refresh of the NOF metrics. We have changed our approach slightly to alerts and introducing "double alerts" within the IPR. We have been running development sessions with metric owners and the understanding statistical process controls - driving forward a common language including "making data count"."
Roger Wilson, Interim Director of People: " In relation to the sickness absence we feel the impact of e-rostering across the organisation will support this positively with a key focus, working closely with Jo Nevin, looking at those areas that require the most intensive support and improvement and also understanding those areas that also perform well."
Core framework mapping risks to strategic objectives and improvement themes
2025/26: 6 principal risks; 2026/27: expanded to 12 risks - approved by Board
Key 2026/27 risk themes:
Workforce (people, sickness, culture)
Quality of care & clinical pathways
Access & patient flow
Financial sustainability
Health inequalities
Strategic partnerships & system working
Community and placed based models of care
Commissioning & contracting
Innovation & transformation
Cyber, digital infrastructure, data quality
Risk appetite:
Seek (most areas incl. quality, people, digital)
Cautious (patient safety)
Open (finance)
Significant (health inequalities)
Moderate assurance from internal audit (MIAA)
Ongoing work to:
Strengthen controls and assurance
Fully populate and review new BAF (July Board)
Faouzi Alam, Medical Director:: "Building upon the work at Board development we have 12 new strategic risks with include new emerging risks ie Cyber. If the Board approve we fully populate and review at July Board."
David Fearnley, NED: "This paper is a great way of taking stock, its a great piece of work and continues to get into the detail and how the organisation manages risk - which goes from strength to strength."
Chris Lynch, NED: "Reflecting on this, it explicitly mentions outcomes and experience but it would be good to see how those development measures, in the IPR, are seen and triangulated."
Key workforce risks:
Sickness absence 6.8% (high); early reduction seen
Appraisal rates improving (~81%), but still a focus
Overall: Committee assured but workforce pressures remain a major strategic risk
Chris Lynch, NED: "We are really engaging with the staff networks; at the last committee we agreed additional resource to help with activities."
Financial performance:
2025-26 £14.5m efficiency programme delivered
Financial plan for 2026/27 is to break even overall - efficiency target of £14.8m.
As of May, £14.8m worth of schemes have been identified (differing levels of maturity).
Cash position (£26.1m) reduction on the previous year, no concerns around liquidity.
Operational insights:
CYP services overperforming financially (linked to vacancies)
Some data quality and reporting issues remain
Digital & risk oversight:
New BAF risks: cyber, digital, data quality
Increased focus on data quality improvement
Overall: Financial position stable, but income risk + system pressures require monitoring
Approval of the NHS Provider Licence - the Trust is required annually to have a statement approved regarding the availability of required resources for the coming 12 months, by the end of May (two months following the financial year-end).
Approval of the Capital Plan
Elizabeth Harrison, NED: "We are looking to move our IPR bi-monthly (however the IPR will be going monthly to executive meetings). We have conducted a deep dive on data quality (which are sighted as part of the NOF) which includes a detailed action plan, with issues identified. We also looked at the contractual deconstruction/block including levels of productivity vs national cost index."
Eric Solomons, NED: "Under the digital data quality there is an internal report, which gives us good assurance."
Jennie Birch, Director of Finance: "I would like to celebrate the success of last year's capital plan (£15.4m) of which 80% was bid for and secured with complete delivery of the plan. Within the 26-27 programme (£10.4m), is the proposed split, including 4 bids underway positioned against national funding ie mental health crisis centre, mental health neighbourhood hubs. We have got our capital plan outlined over the next 5 years included in the paper."
Strong assurance overall on quality, safety and governance. One recommendation to Board on BAF transition.
Key strengths: Robust governance and reporting and strong response to national policy and safety initiatives. Key focus areas include:
Workforce training compliance
Embedding integrated quality reporting
Managing BAF transition without loss of assurance
Quality Committee development session completed → focus on integrated, triangulated quality reporting
Clinical Audit Programme 2026/27 approved, aligned to national and Trust priorities
R&D Report approved → focus on translating research into practice
Other activity:
Strengthening committee structure and effectiveness
Integrated Quality Report (IQR). The IQR (covering March – April 2026) was received, to supplement the quality control reporting against quality measures at organisational level provided through the Integrated Performance Report (IPR)
Strong assurance across governance and audit processes
Main improvement area: Sickness absence controls and consistency of recording → Moderate Assurance. Improvement actions in place to strengthen controls and reduce absence.
Internal Audit Progress (Q4) and External Audit Plan 2025/26 approved by Committee
Conflicts of Interest: Registers reviewed across Board, Governors and staff/ Policy update due July 2026
Internal Audit Plan 2026/27: Approved with focus on delivery and oversight
Audit Actions: 18 actions outstanding; good progress closing them
Anti-Fraud Plan 2026/27: Approved
Accounting Policies: Confirmed appropriate for 2025/26 accounts
Annual Governance Statement: No significant internal control issues identified
Code of Governance: Largely compliant
Board Assurance Framework (BAF): Progress reviewed; new risks to be finalised
Tender Waivers: 33 approved (Oct 2025–Mar 2026) with assurance on process
Audit Committee Terms of Reference: Annual review completed; further update planned after effectiveness review
The Board was asked to approve the following:
The Performance Accountability Framework: This is a revised version, initially introduced last year, which has been updated. Strengthens grip, consistency and transparency of performance management across the Trust.
Eric Solomons, NED: "Thank you, it will be good to see this in action."
The updated MOU for CWP and Mersey Care: Enables closer strategic collaboration while maintaining organisational autonomy. This creates space for assurance and space for the work to be done.
The Fit and Proper Persons Annual Assurance: Provides assurance that the Board operates with appropriate integrity, competence and compliance.
Chair's vlog - summary of the May Board
You can watch the latest Board summary vlog from Isla Wilson, CWP Chair, below on YouTube.
