Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust covers a large geographical area including Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes, Norfolk and Suffolk. The trust provides a wide portfolio of services, including dental healthcare, integrated contraception and sexual health services (iCaSH), a range of services for children, young people (CYP) and families and specialist and musculoskeletal physiotherapy services and core older people care at home services. The trust employs more than 3000 staff serving a population of more than three million.
The Brookfields Community Dental Services hub offers specialist dental services and treatments, and a domiciliary service. Here, special care dentist Julia Hallan-Seagrave spoke about building great working relationships with colleagues to gain access to larger supplies of general anaesthetic for specialist treatment. The top cause of hospital admissions in children aged between 6-10 is for teeth extraction, preventative with correct oral hygiene routines. The trust has successfully partnered with 25 organisations across the East of England to encourage supervised teeth brushing, aiming to reduce the need for hospitalisation in children. The hub also has specialist waiting rooms with a quiet space and a sensory room to meet patient need.
I then visited the iCaSH facilities; it's a fantastic example of the trust co-producing with local organisations and charities in treating sexually transmitted infections. For instance, iCaSH works with the Terrence Higgins Trust to provide sexual health testing, education, support and advice. A key challenge for the team is that it’s not received any extra funding over the last nine years, but its 330 staff still provide an effective service despite huge demand and stretched resources (for example online sexual health tests are capped per day as demand currently outstrips supply). Staff have great pride in the work they do; some highlighted the trust's Chrysalis Leadership Programme as a particular benefit. Thus allowing managers access to training and development, an area that scored highly in the recent national NHS staff survey.
My last stop was the children and young people health services hub at the Peacock centre. I learnt that children are becoming unhealthier, and that both education and flat cash budget settlements in public health contribute to this. Childrens' service director John Peberdey talked to me about his concerns around community health care getting lost in the national focus on acute paediatrics, as well as buzz surrounding a potential new Cambridge Children's Hospital. John and the CYP services team also takes great pride in its active mental health initiative, which gives all schools across Peterborough and the Fenlands access to a mental health professional.
I finished my time in Cambridge with a roundtable discussion with chair Mary Elford and Matthew Winn, chief executive officer. I heard about the trust's positive working relationships with local integrated care systems and local authorities. I'm sure this is partly due to how visible both Matthew and Mary are as senior leaders on the floor, a key theme I heard from staff throughout my visit. The trust has some of the best staff survey results in the NHS, and support for leaders and staff was evident during all my service visits.
I left Cambridgeshire Community Service NHS Trust inspired after meeting with so many enthusiastic members of staff, and reflecting on the urgent need to prioritise CYP services. As John Peberdey put simply yet effectively: "Our children today are our adults tomorrow".
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