ELFT Membership ‘A membership that provides a voice and connects us to those we serve and work with, helping to shape what we do’

And how do we do that? Simply put, we provide an opportunity, a voice.

It’s our opportunity to provide members (and the population) with information on ELFT services and wider health matters and your opportunity to share what you have learnt with others, providing us with feedback and finally, the louder voice, an opportunity to become a governor and work with our Board to achieve our strategy.

Firstly, a thank you, we would like to say a big thank you to everyone that has taken the time to either complete our Trusttalk survey, attended one of feedback sessions or attended an annual planning session – we cannot improve services unless we hear from you.

The Trusttalk survey has now closed and we will be reviewing the outcomes and will update you later this year.

We heard at our annual planning sessions that communication, particularly sign posting is key to you. Helping you make informed decisions about your health are most important to you and we will be working with our colleagues in Communications, our Services, our People Participation teams and the Voluntary services to improve on that.

Our Membership engagement plan has given us the opportunity to really focus on what our members want from us and how we as a Trust can help with the wider determinants of health. Being and staying healthy is much more than one single focus, you will have read about our Tree of Life programme and Patients Know Best elsewhere in the magazine.

Opportunities to hear and meet us!

You can meet your Governors and Board members at Council of Governor meetings and Trust Board meetings, both are held in person.

Our Next Council of Governor meeting is the 14 March at 17:00 and the Trust Board on 28 March at 13:30. Further details and papers are available on our website.

We have saved the best news unit last, we will be holding some face to face meetings with our members this year – we will be visiting our localities and look forward to seeing you in person again. Please ensure we have your email address so that we can let you know when!

And our usual plea – to help us Save pennies If Trusttalk is posted to you, please let us have your email address. You will still hear from us but it will by email. We would prefer to send you an email version of Trusttalk. Not only will we save trees, we will save on postage costs!

So please, if you have an email address - let us know. You can email us at: elft.membership@nhs.net please include your full name and address.

If you have any feedback or you no longer wish to hear from us (and that’s ok), please let us know using the details below:

elft.membership@nhs.net or telephone 0800 032 7297.