Notes

NOTE FROM THE INTEGRATED PROGRAMME DIRECTOR

Working on the Integrated Programme has been a true marathon of more than 20 years of working with a wide range of talented people to bring us to this exciting moment when we take the first phase (Springfield) into patient service. But that’s just the start of realising the dream, as we start to welcome the new residents of the homes the new Springfield Village is really going to start its vibrant life.

We are also breathing new life into our services at Barnes, Richmond and Tolworth, a journey for the buildings taking us into 2025. Our working with people with lived experience to continually improve our services to patients though, will carry on, using the discussion around planning as the starting point. When we look around us in 2025, we will see most of our inpatient spaces in new or recently refurbished places. All our rooms will support dignity, safety and respect with en-suites bedrooms and appropriate fixtures and fittings. We will have moved well away from the institutional styles of the past, and by working with the arts charity Hospital Rooms our new buildings will be modern and welcoming, filled with space, light, vitality, wellness and creativity.

We will have faced up to stigma by building new communities around us and will have supported mental wellness by making the most of outside spaces and releasing land for affordable homes. We will have worked across government making a school for special educational needs and disabilities happen at Barnes to complement our our services for children and young people. We will have given the citizens of South West London more equitable access to our services, at the same time levelling up the location of services across the five boroughs we serve, supporting clinical innovation and the NHS net carbon zero aspiration.

Speaking for all the team, it has been an absolute privilege to have a share in making this vision a reality.

Ian Garlington

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

What a privilege it has been to meet and learn from the dozens of people I met and interviewed for this book of memories - and it has been fascinating!

Two things consistently shone through to me in these conversations – first, the compassion for people who are struggling and second, the hopeful and healing nature of care and caregivers – the words ‘hope’ and ‘recovery’ were constants in our conversations.

I was also struck by how mental health care has changed during the life of Springfield and other hospitals associated with the Trust. And while all at the Trust face monumental changes in environment and working styles (change isn’t always easy), and some cherished things are lost, ultimately, most agreed that things have moved forward for the people who need care.

I’m sure there could be volumes more stories of individuals who have lived and worked here over the past century and a half. I apologise that I have had to edit down many stories, and omit others, it was purely for the sake of space.

Leanne Holgate