National award nomination for Herefordshire and Worcestershire NHS Trust's mental health services
Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust has been recognised for its continued work focusing on improving its care for those using its mental health services
The work of an NHS trust to develop its mental health services for patients across Herefordshire and Worcestershire has been acknowledged.
Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust has been shortlisted for the Mental Health Safety Improvement Award at the Health Service Journal (HSJ) Patient Safety Awards 2026.
It said the nomination recognises its commitment to improving the safety and quality of care of those using the services and follows work which has been taking place to strengthen clinical risk assessment and safety planning practices across mental health and learning disability services.
The trust's divisional director of nursing and allied health professionals, Matt Thomas, who is one of those who has led it, said he was delighted by it.
"It's really exciting and I guess it's really validating," he said.
"We've been doing this work for the last I'd say two-and-a-half years, it's been quite a lengthy, multi-professional kind of project, and it's been really nice to be able to share that with the people who've been involved with it.
It's rewarding and it shows that the work that we're doing is on the right lines of what's valuable for patients, families and staff working in mental health."
Mr Thomas worked alongside mental health risk assessment and risk management trainer Tim Page to undertake a 'comprehensive review' of the trust’s clinical risk assessment approach.
From that, they used patients, families and carers to directly shape improvements, developing a new, enhanced risk assessment training package for clinicians.
It has led to a new narrative-based risk assessment form being introduced into the trust’s electronic patient record system and has also seen it share what it has learnt nationally through the Culture of Care programme.
The winner of the award will be announced on the 28 September.