Updates from Group Board – Tuesday 6 January 2026
Dear colleague
Welcome to Updates from Group Board for the Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group (LCHG). This Group is made up of Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS) and United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (ULTH).
The Group Board operates as the joint board and decision-making body for both statutory organisations and this update is designed to inform colleagues and stakeholders of the discussion and decisions being taken at both the Group and individual Trust level.
We held our most recent Group Board meeting on Tuesday 6 January 2026, which was open for members of the public to join virtually. The full Board meeting papers can be found on the Trust Board papers page on the website.
Patient and staff story: The Board heard an amazing story about the school nursing team who work out of St Francis School in Lincoln, a special school which teaches 174 children with complex needs. The team support children who attend the school, offering medication, therapies and urgent response so that they can continue to attend school and get an education. It also describes how they offer staff training and support, so that they can care for these children with complex medical needs, keeping them in school and preventing hospital admissions. This multi-professional team consistently go above and beyond to ensure families receive the support they need, and the story showed the incredible impact this team has on the school, the children and families they support. The full story available on YouTube.
Celebrating Group success – Ward accreditation- Scampton Ward at Lincoln County Hospital was celebrated in the Diamond Quality Accreditation Scheme with a Bronze Award. This recognises wards and departments that demonstrate consistently high standards of patient care and evidence of their improvement journey, measured through a variety of metrics.
Ward leader Gemma Hayselden spoke about how the ward, which specialises in dementia and Parkinson’s disease, has brought in a range of initiatives to improve patient experience. She described how, following feedback, they have introduced a ‘breaking bad news’ room, which is a quiet space that staff can use to speak to patients and families about sensitive subjects or deliver bad news away from the busy ward environment. Following relative feedback, the ward also purchased z-beds using charitable funds, so that carers or those whose relatives are nearing the end of life can stay overnight near to their loved ones on the ward.
Good news stories:
- Following an inspection carried out in September 2025 into end of life care at LCHS the CQC published its report on Monday 24 November 2025. During the assessment, the CQC visited all locations within LCHS that provide end of life care including The Butterfly Hospice in Boston, John Coupland Hospital in Gainsborough, County Hospital, Louth, the Tulip Suite at Johnson Community Hospital in Spalding and Skegness District Hospital. The overall rating of the service remained as ‘Good’ as a result of the inspection, which demonstrates a continued commitment to providing high quality end of life care to the residents of Lincolnshire.
- In November, the Group had the privilege of hosting the Public Board meeting of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB), providing a valuable opportunity to observe their proceedings. Following the meeting, Group representatives engaged with HSSIB to showcase the significant patient safety improvements currently being implemented across the Group. Immediate feedback from HSSIB was positive, recognising the depth and quality of our patient safety work and noting the substantial impact these initiatives are expected to deliver once fully embedded.
- Following a successful pilot of the Pharmacy First initiative at Lincoln Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC), a new referral pathway will be rolled out across all UTCs and Clinical Assessment Services (CAS) in 2026. This pathway enables staff to refer patients with specific conditions directly to a pharmacy of their choice, reducing waiting times at UTCs.
- The School Aged Immunisation Service (SAIS) for Lincolnshire has been recognised as one of the leading performers in the region, surpassing both Midlands and national averages. Since September, the team has successfully administered over 51,500 flu vaccinations to children aged 4–16 across the county, helping to protect thousands of families and communities. LCHS will continue to host and deliver SAIS in Lincolnshire for a further three years.
- The county’s Community Diagnostic Centres (CDC) have had a lot to celebrate in the last few months. The joint building project for the Lincoln and Skegness CDCs was honoured at the Building Better Healthcare Awards 2025, winning Gold in the CDC of the Year category. These prestigious awards celebrate the most innovative projects driving the future of healthcare design, technology, and delivery across the UK. The award was collected by ULTH’s building partners, MTX Contracts, in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the project. In addition, our CDCs reached an important milestone in December, completing more than a quarter of a million diagnostic tests overall since the programme was launched in Lincolnshire in 2022.
- Carol Jackson, Healthcare Support Worker at Lincoln County Hospital, has been honoured with the prestigious Chief Nursing Officer for England Award. Carol plays a vital role in supporting patients undergoing cancer treatment, providing emotional care and compassion during what is often an incredibly challenging time. This national award recognises Carol’s outstanding contribution and the meaningful difference she makes every day to the lives of both patients and her nursing colleagues.
NHS National Oversight Framework: During December, the National Oversight Framework ratings for Quarter 2 were published. For this period, ULTH remains in segment 4, ranking 124th out of 134 acute trusts. LCHS was placed in segment 4, ranking 46th out of a peer group of 61. The data highlights several areas where local services compare well against peers, and the publication of these metrics enables the Group to focus on opportunities for improvement to benefit patients. It is important to note that the report reflects performance from three months ago. While there is still more to do, we know that a number of access measures have continued to improve since then.
Infection prevention and control: The Group continues to face significant challenges due to the national rise in cases of flu and other respiratory illnesses. As a result, the Group has introduced mandatory mask wearing for staff, patients and visitors in all clinical areas across acute and community services in the county. This reflects our commitment to protecting patients and staff, reducing transmission risk, and maintaining resilience during a period of heightened seasonal pressure.
Resident doctor industrial action: Resident doctors participated two periods of national industrial action coordinated by the British Medical Association in November and December 2025. Extensive planning was undertaken for this action, which resulted in the county’s acute hospitals cancelling very little patient activity – maintaining in excess of 95% of activity during both strikes. The professionalism, flexibility and compassion of staff under pressure ensured that patients continued to receive safe, high-quality care and that teams were supported.
Winter plan and operational update: As we have moved deeper into winter, the Group and system winter plans are in operation and remain under regular review. The Board received the most recent review report, which outlined several challenges around the OPAT service, where additional work is now underway to maximise available capacity and ensure more patients can receive intravenous treatments in their own homes.
The report highlighted that a new model is operating at both Lincoln County Hospital and Pilgrim Hospital, Boston for emergency paediatric patients, and that there has been a good uptake of flu vaccinations among Group staff.
The report outlined that in spite of winter pressures, performance on the four hour A&E access target has been strong, but there are challenges around the number of patients waiting in excess of 12 hours in Emergency Departments, as a direct result of issues with discharge from hospital and bed availability, which the Group is actively working on with partners.
Equality and diversity:
- Sir Jim Mackey, NHS England Chief Executive and Jo Lenaghan, Chief Workforce Officer wrote to all trusts confirming NHS England were formally and actively adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism and encouraged all NHS organisations to adopt and note the associate commitments to free speech in order to reinforce the collective stance against antisemitism. LCHG is committed to this ask and will continue with the planned local actions and also ensure that the national actions are embedded when new guidance and training is released.
- NHS England wrote to all NHS trusts in December with requirements to strengthen processes to promote sexual safety and reduce sexual misconduct in the NHS. A number of new actions were outlined for trusts to undertake including introducing investigation training and specialist investigators. Trusts are also required to review their chaperoning policies to ensure that they reflect the key principles in the improving chaperoning guidance, along with establishing review groups to ensure that sexual misconduct reports are correctly and robustly considered. The Group has reinforced our commitment to creating a safe environment through the launch of the Sexual Safety Charter, an update on which was also received by the Board.
- The Board formally approved the Group Modern Slavery Annual Statement, which sets out the steps that LCHG has taken, and is continuing to take, to make sure that modern slavery or human trafficking is not taking place within its business or supply chain.
Maternity services update: The Board received the ULTH Perinatal Assurance Report, which outlines progress on maternity and neonatal transformation work, regulatory and professional requirements and national agendas. This includes a review of maternity staffing, the Perinatal Quality Surveillance Model (PQSM), Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST) Maternity Incentive Scheme (MIS), Saving Babies Lives care Bundle (SBLCB), the Three Year Delivery Plan and the Regional Maternity Heat Map. The report details high levels of compliance and assurance across many areas, demonstrating the high quality of maternity care offered to the people of Lincolnshire. A small number of escalations were outlined relating to workforce and to ensuring that the voices of women and families are used in the development and improvement of services, both of which are positively being picked up as part of planned future work.
Supporting our staff:
- The Board heard about the Bee Kind to the Redeployed initiative, which is a checklist and feedback form that has been launched across the Group to support staff being redeployed
- An update was provided on Group progress against the Resident Doctors 10 Point Plan, which is aimed at improving the working lives of resident doctors. The report outlined significant progress made against the required actions, including in improving workplace wellbeing, putting in place named leads for resident doctor issues, streamlining processes around statutory and mandatory training and ensuring course-related expenses are reimburse din a timely manner. More work is now underway to ensure outstanding areas of compliance are fully understood and requirements met.
- Progress was noted in respect of the National Staff Survey (NSS) completion of actions plan for the previous year, despite some variation in progress. Overall response rates for the 2025 NSS were noted as positive, with a 12% increase noted for both ULTH and LCHS compared to the previous year.
- The Board heard that the staff uptake of the flu vaccination across the Group has been impressively high this year, with over half of all staff vaccinated, making us some of the best-performing Trusts in the region. We have agreed to aim to vaccinate at least 58% of acute staff and 55% of community staff this year, which should easily be achieved. This means our services will be more resilient to illness, and will help prevent more people becoming seriously unwell with flu.
Planning: The Board received an update on national planning submissions that the Group is required to make. This showed the first submission has been made, which outlines how the Group will meet a range of expectations around activity, productivity, performance trajectories, finance and workforce. The submission describes further work underway to identify future cost savings, workforce improvements and also how transformation of services and ‘left shift’ of activity out of acute hospitals and into the community, as well as digitisation, will support delivery.
Health and safety: The Board received the Health and Safety Annual Report for 2024/25, which describes how the Group has fulfilled its duty under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR).
The report set out the significant achievements made during the year and the agreed objectives for the effective management of health and safety in 2025-26, with an emphasis on seeking to explore and use innovative solutions to manage health and safety risks, such as Health and Safety Champions.
Finance: At month eight, the year-to-date financial position for the Group is a £12.3m deficit, which is £2.4m adverse to plan. This is mainly down to the profiling of financial planning through the year, as well as additional financial pressures as a result of industrial action, and requires the Group to take action in the coming months to enable a return to financial balance by 31 March 2026. There are three key areas of internal focus to support the recovery of the financial position, which are being monitored with care groups and corporate leads:
- Variable income delivery
- Delivery of cost improvement programme (CIP), which has delivered savings of £41.9m – £0.7m lower than planned. Some schemes are not delivering as planned and further mitigations are being found to ensure delivery.
- Workforce controls, including introducing medical spend caps, vacancy control process, rostering controls and delays to start dates.
The Group has so far delivered capital expenditure of £28.4m in-year, which is £21.1m lower than planned. This is mainly driven by delays in approval, but it is anticipated that this will be recovered by the end of the financial year.
If you have any feedback on the discussions at the Group board, please contact [email protected]
Kind regards
Elaine Baylis
Group Chair
Karen Dunderdale
Group Chief Executive