Publish date: 8 August 2025
Senior leads, practitioners, volunteers and experts by experience gathered last week to celebrate the mid point of the Trust’s successful pilot of the NHS Culture of Care Programme.
Welcoming around 40 people to our Rowan View site, outgoing director Donna Robinson said:
“It’s great to be able to release people to attend and connect at this special event.”
Four wards across Mersey Care had taken part: Taylor, an acute ward at Peasley Cross; Irwell at Clock View; Blake, one of Ashworth’s high dependency wards, and Rowan View’s Delamere Ward, currently a female learning disability setting.
Work began in April 2024 with the NHS National Programme, whose standards include equality, transparency, safety, staff support and lived experience.
Donna said the pilot had progressed well from a challenging start. She told the group:
“It’s not a race, we’ve got very different patient groups and challenges. It’s about implementing sustainable change in the inpatient environment for patients and staff.”
Year two began this May and the Trust Board of Directors has been updated. Our Chief Nurse, Jenny Hurst recounted some past times when patients hadn’t been kept in the loop as they should. Jenny said: “This demonstrates our core business, how we engage. We all should be talking to our patients … and listening to them. It’s a great piece of work.”
Some of the highlights:
- Delamere: independent meal preparation introduced and new PBS planning – incidents have more than halved
- Blake: open door reviews for patients in long term segregation (LTS) – big reduction in LTS
- Taylor: reviewed patient welcome pack to include combs for Afro hair and skin sensitivity needs addressed, new faith box in appropriate languages, sensory garden created – staff retention is up
- Irwell: privacy preferences discussed on admission for issues like night lights, ‘get to know me’ cards, a remote chapel service via iPad introduced – also improving staff turnover levels.
Donna Robinson, who leaves Mersey Care this month and hands over the reigns of the project to Jenny, encouraged the team to carry on and scale up the work.
