As Sunday 10 October marked World Mental Health Day I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all our colleagues working across our mental health services for all you do to support our service users and their loved ones. I also wanted to use this as another reminder about the importance of looking after your own mental health and wellbeing, as well as supporting your colleagues. Please do take a look at the wellbeing services available to all staff working across NELFT and the north east London patch via Keeping Well NEL. 

October is a busy month in terms of awareness raising. It is Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) Month and I would like to thank Kate Pollock, our FTSU Guardian, for the work she has been doing with colleagues across the Trust to really develop a culture of speaking up and supporting others to feel they have a safe space to do so. As part of our desire to embed a just and compassionate culture across NELFT, speaking up is a really important element of compassion, as well as learning.

It is also Black History Month and I know our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion team and our Ethnic Minority Network, have been working hard to put on a range of events and to highlight the cultural aspects of Black History Month. We value the contributions all of our colleagues make to our organisation and we know that creating, nurturing and developing diverse teams delivers better outcomes for our patients. I am so grateful to the network for the vision, support and challenge they give to me.

This Thursday is National Allied Health Professionals (AHP) day and I want to say a huge thank you to all of our AHPs across the organisation and to say I hope many of you will be taking part in the North East London AHP Celebration Day taking place on 14 October. Thank you to Christopher Tuckett, our Associate Director for AHPs, and the team for all you do to engage colleagues in the work of AHPs across the Trust.

This month we welcomed over 150 new colleagues to team NELFT at our monthly Trust induction. I am so pleased to see our recruitment efforts paying off as we also welcomed 150 colleagues to NELFT last month. I know that recruitment and vacancy rates can be an area of concern for some services and it is good to see such a consistently high number of new starters. I was heartened to hear from colleagues at our meet and greet sessions that many of them are returning to work for NELFT having experienced roles elsewhere, and also colleagues who have been on placements with us previously and chosen to come to work with us. If you want to know more about working with us visit the Work For Us section of the website. 

Take care.

Oliver