Top leaders come together to shape the future of patient care

Claire Murdoch, Chief Executive, provided an overview of the current landscape and what lies ahead. She spoke candidly about the pressures facing services, but also highlighted the opportunity to transform care through innovation, partnership working and strong leadership. She reinforced that, even in challenging times, the focus must remain on improving experiences and outcomes for patients.

Claire reflected on the Trust’s charity abseil as a powerful metaphor for the work of staff recognising that while the journey can be challenging, with determination and teamwork, we continue to climb to new heights and reach our goals. She reinforced the key messages from the day and thanked colleagues for their continued contribution.

Ross Graves, Chief Strategy and Digital Officer, outlined the Trust’s strategic direction for 2026 and beyond, focused on three priorities: strengthening CNWL’s role as clinical experts, expanding neighbourhood health and accelerating digital innovation.

He highlighted the importance of delivering high-quality, evidence-based and personalised care, with a strong focus on outcomes and making every contact count. Neighbourhood health will see CNWL working more closely with communities and Integrated Neighbourhood Teams to deliver joined-up, place-based care and reduce variation.

Digital innovation will play a key role in improving access and efficiency from using the NHS App and digital channels to embedding AI in clinical practice, helping make the right thing to do the easy thing to do for staff.

Across all areas, the focus remains on tackling inequity, improving productivity and delivering better outcomes for patients.

Tom Shearer, Chief Financial Officer followed with an update on the financial position, underlining the importance of balancing efficiency with quality. He emphasised that making the best use of resources is essential to sustaining high standards of care.

Introduced by Hilary Tovey, Director of Strategy, Divisional Directors brought the strategy to life through practical examples of transformation already underway. These included improvements in older adult services, developments in specialist children’s services, and innovative approaches to delivering care in community settings. Leaders emphasised the importance of empowering teams, using technology responsibly, and maintaining a clear focus on outcomes, access and workforce sustainability.

Diggory

Wendy Purdom, Service Manager for Specialist Children's Services and Emma Pullan, Specialist Nurse shared an example of innovation in Milton Keynes Community Specialist Children’s Services, showing how leadership, culture and technology can come together to improve care.

Their approach focuses on using AI as a supportive tool, grounded in clinical expertise. The team tested an AI tool within existing pathways, identified its limitations and refined it through continuous learning ensuring it worked effectively in real clinical settings.

A key enabler was creating psychological safety, where staff felt confident to try new ideas and learn from challenges. This supported leadership-led innovation and empowered teams to shape change.

They emphasised that in a high-demand system, quality, access and workforce sustainability are interdependent and that traditional productivity approaches alone are not enough.

Their model (built on self-management and digital triage) is flexible and transferable across services, with a continued focus on personalised care, improving outcomes and helping service users take greater ownership of their health.

Jameson

Sabrina Phillips, Director for Jameson, set out the vision for transforming Older Adult Mental Health services, with a strong focus on delivering integrated, community-based care that enables people to live well at home for as long as possible. Built around a “home first” approach, the model aims to prevent avoidable admissions, support timely discharge and reduce readmissions through closer working with Integrated Neighbourhood Teams.

She highlighted three key priorities: establishing a core common offer to reduce variation in care, increasing investment in enhanced older adult services to improve flow and productivity, and strengthening partnership working across the system. Together, these changes aim to deliver more consistent, high-quality care, improve patient and carer experience, and ensure services are sustainable in the face of growing demand.

Goodall

Vanessa Odlin, Director for Goodall introduced Salim and Joe who outlined major changes to Children’s Neurodevelopmental Pathways, addressing long waiting times, inconsistent access and growing demand. A new “one CNWL way” approach is being introduced with a single service line, front door, integrated clinical model and digital pathway to create more equitable and streamlined care. The changes aim to improve productivity and experience by reducing duplication, increasing capacity and creating clearer journeys for families. Early impact shows a stronger focus on equity, better use of clinical time, and more consistent, high-quality care across services.

A session led by Dr Cornelius Kelly, Chief Medical Officer and Amanda Pithouse, Chief Nurse focused on delivering outstanding care through the Quality Management System (QMS). Through interactive exercises, leaders explored how quality improvement can be embedded into everyday practice. The session reinforced the importance of simplifying complexity and maintaining optimism, with a shared message to “bring optimism, hope and make complexity more straightforward.”

The discussion also highlighted the importance of transparency and data in driving improvement, with a clear message that better data enables better decision-making and ultimately better patient care.

In the afternoon, Nick Green introduced the People Strategy, focusing on how the Trust can better support its workforce now and in the future. A key part of this session explored how data and insight — including the use of workforce personas — can help shape more responsive, inclusive and effective approaches to supporting staff.

Nick highlighted a set of staff personas developed to reflect the diverse needs of colleagues at different career stages. These personas help the organisation better understand what matters most to its workforce, enabling more targeted and meaningful support.

One example was Grace, a 25-year-old community nurse representing the future generation of the NHS workforce. Her priorities include access to mentorship and management support, clear career development and specialisation pathways, access to training, and a fair working environment particularly around rotas and flexibility. This reflects the expectations of a new generation entering the workforce, who are looking for growth, structure and balance.

Alongside this, personas such as Donna, a 40-year-old mental health nurse, and Sarah, a 53-year-old clinical psychologist, highlighted the importance of recognising experience and expertise. For these colleagues, priorities include autonomy over their schedules, acknowledgement of technical skill, inclusion in decision-making and feeling heard and valued for their contribution and years of service.

Nick explained that this persona-based approach informed by workforce insight and evolving tools, including AI enables the Trust to design more personalised and effective people strategies. By understanding different staff needs more deeply, the organisation can create the conditions for its people to thrive.

The session reinforced that supporting staff in the right way is essential to delivering high-quality patient care. When colleagues feel valued, developed and empowered, they are better able to provide consistent, compassionate and effective care to patients.

Dr Ryan Kemp, Director of Therapies, shared insights from the 21st Century Leadership Programme. He spoke about the value of creating reflective space for leaders, fostering compassionate and relational leadership and having the courage to address cultural bias. The importance of senior leaders modelling the right behaviours to shape organisational culture was also emphasised.

Mark Friend reflected on the progress already being made across the Trust, expressing pride in both the organisation and its people. He spoke about how encouraged he is to see strong engagement across services, with teams actively driving improvement and innovation.

He highlighted the importance of remaining patient-focused, innovative, world-leading and proud of our work, reinforcing that these principles underpin the Trust’s ambition to deliver exceptional care.

Reflecting on the day, Mark said:
“I am incredibly proud to be part of this Trust. Across our services, we are seeing real engagement, innovation and a shared commitment to delivering the best possible care for our patients.”

The “Ask an Exec” session provided an open forum for honest conversation, allowing leaders to raise questions and explore practical solutions with the executive team. Discussions focused on innovation, workforce challenges and how to continue improving services in a complex environment.