I feel incredibly proud to start this column by sharing the news I have been substantively appointed as Chief Executive Officer for the Trust.

It has been a great privilege to serve as Interim CEO since August 2023, following the appointment of former Chief Executive, Paul Calaminus, as Chief Executive at North East London NHS Foundation Trust. I am delighted to have been appointed substantively.

I believe strongly in our mission as a Trust to improve the quality of life for all we serve and look forward to continuing to work with our service users and carers, staff and system partners in our shared endeavour to deliver this aim for our populations in North East London, Bedfordshire and Luton.

The spotlight for this edition of Trust Talk is on the incredible work taking place through the Service User-Led Accreditation programme.

Service users, carers, services and colleagues from Quality Assurance (QA) are working side-by-side to deliver this programme.

It is the first of its kind and supports services to further improve care for service users and carers across ELFT.

Service users involved describe their role as ‘helping services see their blind spots’ and identifying small changes that might have a big impact on their service users and carers.

It is going from strength to strength and this edition features interviews with services who have achieved the new platinum programme award, a standard which reflects an exceptional attitude to listening, learning and improving.

The programme continues to develop and colleagues from QA are busy designing accreditation for our corporate services.

I would like to thank every service user, carer and colleague involved for their passion and commitment to improving care.

It is heartening to see so many service user stories in the magazine.

Bedfordshire Community Health Services (BCHS) service user Moniek talks about her work in helping organise the first Bedfordshire Wellbeing Games and Gari discusses his role as a People Participation (PP) Lead for our estates and facilities directorate.

We also speak with Rob, who is ensuring service users and carers help shape delivery of mental health, learning disability and autism care in north east London (NEL) through the Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism Collaborative.

These interviews help paint a picture of the meaningful co-production happening in all areas of the Trust and it is wonderful to see.

Lorraine Sunduza
Chief Executive