Lauren Cartwright

North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust

We provide mental health and learning disability care to 464,000 people predominantly living in Stoke-on-Trent and in North Staffordshire, deliver services through six clinical Directorates; Adult Mental Health Inpatient, Adult Mental Health Community, Substance Misuse, Learning Disabilities, Neuro and Old Age Psychiatry and Children and Young People's Services. We work from over 30 hospital and community-based premises; our main site is Harplands Hospital and provides the setting for most of our inpatient units. Corporate staff are based in Trentham. We provide services to people of all ages with a wide range of mental health and learning disability needs. Sometimes our service users need to spend time in hospital, however, we are often able to provide care in outpatient/community settings and in people's homes. Our main NHS partners are North Staffordshire CCG and Stoke on Trent CCG; we also work very closely with the Local Authorities in these areas, as well as specialist commissioners. We also work closely with agencies which support people with mental health problems, such as the North Staffs Users Group, Approach, ASIST, Brighter Futures, Changes, EngAGE, North Staffs Huntington's Disease Association, Mind, North Staffs Carers Association, Reach and the Beth Johnson Association. We provide a growing research and development programme in collaboration with local/regional research networks; extending the role of this function features in our future plans which include building our infrastructure to continue to deliver high-quality research across a range of mental health topics. We work in partnership with a range of educational establishments to support staff training, which also raises the Trust's profile, helps the wider healthcare community to improve mental health and learning disability services and ensures that staff keep up to date with best practice.