Sheffield Children’s launches its Clinical Strategy for a Healthier Future

Sheffield Children’s is delighted to announce today the launch of its Clinical Strategy – its five-year plan to help create a healthier future for children and young people.

Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust has worked with more than 1,000 children, young people, families, colleagues, partners and communities to create the strategy which will help to steer the trust’s work into its 150^th birthday and beyond.

The plan combines a realistic look at the challenges facing the health of children and young people – such as the cost-of-living crisis and health inequality, as well as health service challenges like care backlogs, recruitment difficulties and a fatigued health sector workforce. However it also considered the unique opportunity Sheffield Children’s has to make an impact as a specialist provider with integrated physical and mental health services, particularly if it works in partnership with others both locally and nationally.

Sheffield Children’s Chief Executive Ruth Brown said: “Whilst the challenges are great, we have also heard great passion, commitment and hope from our children and young people, families, colleagues, and partners. They believe in our ability at Sheffield Children’s to make a real and lasting difference.

“I’m hugely grateful to the families who shared their personal stories to help guide this strategy, which is ultimately about people. This strategy looks at how we can best serve the children and young people, families, and communities, who need our care, now or in the future. With the strategy now in place, we can do even more to create the healthier future all young people deserve.”

The Clinical Strategy has five main themes:

• Integrated care
• Care where needed
• Centre of Excellence
• Health inequalities and inclusion
• Healthy lives

For each theme, Sheffield Children’s has outlined a series of actions it intends to take. This includes a wide range of steps including tackling issues like obesity and dental decay, making appointments easier for families by moving more support into the community, targeting investment to the communities with the greatest need, developing more services to be nationally and internationally recognised for their expertise and building closer connections between physical and mental health care.

The actions include steps that Sheffield Children’s intends to take itself, areas where it wants to influence others and projects it will deliver in partnership with others, such as local authorities, other health care providers, GPs, national bodies and schools.

This strategy supports the delivery of the Sheffield Children’s Caring Together Strategy, helping Sheffield Children’s continue its progress in providing Outstanding Care, creating a Brilliant Place to Work and being a Leader in Children’s Health. This is supported by the Sheffield Children’s CARE values of Compassion, Accountability, Respect and Excellence.

To find out more, visit Sheffield Children’s website at www.sheffieldchildrens.nhs.uk/clinicalstrategy where you can find the full strategy, information on each theme and videos from the families and clinicians involved in creating the plans.