Our values drive everything we do

Our Trust values underpin everything we do here at Mersey Care. We expect everyone who works at the Trust to embody our values. Our Mersey CARES model (see below) illustrates what qualities we look for throughout our workforce.

Our Perfect Care Goals 

While 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 our improvement journey as being about embedding quality improvement techniques and results, so that we move from having some great examples of outstanding care to more systematic quality improvement that is everywhere in our organisation.

Our Perfect Care priorities for 2026 to 2027 focus on aligning quality, safety, equity and culture into a single improvement framework. The overarching ambition is to promote race equality and deliver safe, personalised and compassionate care, while strengthening learning, culture and accountability across the Trust.

Mersey Care adopted this goal in 2020 because, as a Trust, we remain true to our values that we respect people for what they do and not what they are. Despite racism being rightly regarded as offensive and an offence in law, the issue hasn't gone away.

This goal centres on culture, safety and belonging, with a strong emphasis on Restorative Just and Learning Culture (RJLC). Key aims include:

• Sustaining zero tolerance to racism and unacceptable behaviours through consistent, restorative responses

• Embedding civility, respect and psychological safety as non-negotiable foundations of quality and safety. • Evidencing the impact of RJLC using qualitative and quantitative intelligence

• Developing leaders, teams and ambassadors to apply restorative principles confidently in everyday practice and share learning locally and nationally.

Find out more about our work on YourSpace.

This year we aim to:

• Achieve 40% increase on 2025 to 2026 baseline on Trust wide roll out of HOPE(S) training in inpatient settings with high rates of seclusion, long term segregation or restraint compared to 2025

• Achieve 80% identified staff trained

• Achieve a further and sustained 20% from 2025 reduction in long term segregation(LTS) across Secure Care Division, with specific focus on duration and repeated episodes

• 15% reduction compared with 2025 in assaults resulting in harm, without compensatory increases in restrictive interventions

• Complete a Trust wide mapping exercise of restrictive practices used in community physical health settings.

No Force First

No Force First is our initiative aiming to reduce restrictive practice in our care. All the work we’re doing is part of our long-term goal to achieve Perfect Care. At the heart of that is trying to reach the highest possible standards in everything we do, not just in clinical care but also how we deliver our messages to the outside world.

External organisations have taken such an interest in our journey to No Force First, but there are senior figures in other organisations (and still a few in our own) who still believe suicide is inevitable and No Force First is unachievable. It’s when we are confronted with attitudes like those that we need to show our courage on a number of levels:

  • Organisational – the Board must have the serious ambition to make change and turn ideas into reality despite opposition or conflicting views from peers.
  • Professional – clinicians and GPs must confront their own practices and practices of others, a difficult challenge to change day-to-day methods and gently change the system without confrontation.
  • Experts by experience – they have given so much to help coproduce practice, having the courage to tell their stories and, in some cases, having the courage to stand up and address and influence large groups of people.
  • Staff and patients – have shown great courage in accepting No Force First and making Mersey Care a better caring environment. Our belief that people who use our services are at the centre of everything we do and are, to use our own Perfect Care terminology, ‘the people we serve’ helps to strengthen our incredible emotional commitment to positive change – whatever the obstacles we may encounter.

If you would like any more information about the No Force First initiative, contact the project lead for No Force First on 0151 472 4550.

We were the first NHS mental health trust to commit to achieving zero suicides among our service users in 2015. Mersey Care is a founder member of the Zero Suicide Alliance (ZSA), a collaboration of organisations committed to preventing suicide, and has developed training to give people the skills and confidence to identify, support and signpost someone presenting with suicidal thoughts or behaviour.

This yera we aim to:

  • Implement the transition checklist in 2026/27 beyond the initial pilot phase to enable safer discharge and reduce risk of suicide in transition phase
  • Implement PRISM (Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure Suicidality) safer structure for 48 hour follow up and quality contact, following initial pilot to prevent deaths by suicide in the first week following discharge from hospital
  • Develop structures to enhance and monitor competencies in safety assessment, formulation and safety planning following new training package launch to improve the competency, confidence and skills within the workforce, evidenced through audit.

You can access the ZSA training here.

Find out more about our Trust’s suicide prevention work.

We are aiming for zero acceptance of inequity in access, experience and outcomes for patients and carers and will standardise coproduced care planning across the Trust with the national strategy.

  • Start personalised care project in pilot sites
  • Establish a clear measurable objective and delivery plan for pilot sites
  • Develop an assurance audit
  • Evaluation of learning from pilot sites and work towards wider roll out for 2027. • Launch a patient engagement portal.

This goal centres on culture, safety and belonging, with a strong emphasis on Restorative Just and Learning Culture (RJLC).

Key aims include:

• Sustaining zero tolerance to racism and unacceptable behaviours through consistent, restorative responses

• Embedding civility, respect and psychological safety as non-negotiable foundations of quality and safety

• Evidencing the impact of RJLC using qualitative and quantitative intelligence

• Developing leaders, teams and ambassadors to apply restorative principles confidently in everyday practice and share learning locally and nationally.