Performance analysis

How we set our priorities

Each year, we develop a set of Annual Delivery Plans (ADPs) to support delivery of our Trust strategy. These plans are shaped by a range of factors, including our performance in the previous year, current pressures and challenges, our capacity to deliver and the wider external environment.

We aim to set priorities that are both realistic and ambitious, focusing on the areas where we can make the greatest difference for patients, staff and our communities.

For 2025/26, we agreed to focus on a smaller number of high-impact priorities, providing clear direction across the organisation. These priorities reflect some of the most significant challenges we face and are designed to support improvement over multiple years.

In May 2025, the Trust Board approved three core priority areas:

• Delivering great care: We focused on improving access to services, reducing waiting times and ensuring care is safe, effective and centred around each person’s needs. This included improving how people move through our services, strengthening care planning, and reducing unnecessary time in hospital. A key part of this work is addressing health inequalities. We are working to reduce differences in access, experience and outcomes between different communities, and to ensure care is culturally responsive and inclusive.
• A great place to work: We continued to invest in our staff, recognising that a positive staff experience is essential to delivering high-quality care. Our focus has been on strengthening leadership, improving inclusion, supporting staff wellbeing and creating a culture where people feel valued and supported. This includes our ongoing work to become an actively anti-racist organisation and to create a workplace where everyone feels they belong.
• Sustainability: We worked to ensure our services are sustainable for the future. This includes improving productivity, making best use of our resources and reducing our environmental impact. Digital innovation plays a key role in this, helping us to improve access, reduce administrative burden and support more joined-up care.

Alongside these core priorities, we also identified key enabling programmes to support delivery:

• Better environments: We are investing in modern, high-quality environments that support recovery, reduce stigma and improve experience for patients and staff. This includes major redevelopment programmes across our sites, alongside work to ensure our buildings are welcoming, inclusive and fit for the future.
• Partnerships: We continued to strengthen our work with partners across the health and care system, local authorities and the voluntary sector. Partnership working is essential to improving mental health outcomes, particularly in addressing the wider factors that affect health, such as housing, employment and social connection. Through our Integrated Care System and wider collaborations, we are working to deliver more joined-up, community-based care.

Delivering and monitoring progress

Each priority includes a set of defined actions, timescales and outcome measures. These are supported by baseline data, including ethnicity data where available, to enable us to monitor progress and identify inequalities. Our priorities are closely aligned to our four strategic ambitions and act as the main programmes through which we deliver our strategy.

Progress is monitored throughout the year and reported quarterly to senior leadership, Board committees and the Trust Board. We use a consistent rating system to track both delivery and outcomes: Red: not delivered, Amber: partial improvement, Green: fully achieved. 

A full summary of our performance against our Annual Delivery Plans was presented to Board in May 2026. A summary of our performance is below.

The following table provides a summary of performance at the end of 2025 — 2026, including progress against our priorities, key achievements and areas where further work is required.

While we have made meaningful progress against our priorities in 2025/26, we continue to operate in a challenging and complex environment, and there are areas where further improvement is needed.

Demand for mental health services remains high, reflecting both increased need and greater awareness of mental health. This has placed sustained pressure on access and waiting times, particularly in community and children and young people’s services. Improving timely access to care remains a key focus.

Patient experience has improved in several areas but is not yet consistent across all services. Feedback highlights the need for further improvement in communication, involvement in care decisions and the quality and consistency of care reviews. Ensuring that every patient receives compassionate, person-centred care remains a priority.

Reducing health inequalities continues to be a significant challenge. While we have strengthened our use of data and introduced targeted improvement work, differences in access, engagement and outcomes persist for some communities. Addressing these inequalities requires sustained effort, strong partnerships and continued focus across all services.

We also face ongoing workforce pressures. Although we have made progress in reducing vacancies and reliance on agency staff, challenges remain in areas such as sickness absence, retention and staff wellbeing. These pressures can affect both staff experience and the continuity and quality of care provided to patients.

More broadly, we are operating within a complex and evolving system. There is increasing national focus and scrutiny on mental health services, alongside wider pressures across the NHS. We are also responding to changes in the leadership and policy landscape, as well as growing expectations around quality, productivity and performance.

At the same time, we must continue to strengthen our focus on the fundamentals of service delivery, including the use of data, financial sustainability, productivity and quality improvement. Balancing these priorities while maintaining a strong focus on patient and staff experience remains an ongoing challenge.

These factors underline the importance of partnership working. We can only address many of these challenges by working closely with system partners, communities and stakeholders to deliver more joined-up, preventative and sustainable approaches to care.