Our Trust was established as Birmingham and
Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust on
July 1, 2008. This annual report covers the first
nine month period from licensing up until end
March 2009 for the financial year 2008/2009.
We provide a comprehensive mental healthcare
service for residents of Birmingham and Solihull,
and to communities in the West Midlands
and beyond.
We serve a culturally and socially-diverse
population of 1.2 million spread over 172 square
miles, have an annual budget of £221 million and
a dedicated workforce of just under 4,000,
making our Trust one of the largest and most
complex mental health Foundation Trusts in
the country.
Our catchment population is characterised in
places by high levels of deprivation, low earnings
and unemployment and is ethnically diverse.
These factors create a higher requirement for
access to health services and a greater need for
innovative ways of engaging people from the
most affected areas.
Now that we have achieved Foundation Trust
status, we have more control over the services
we provide, allowing us to provide even better
services and to involve our local communities in
the bigger healthcare decisions that we make.
It will help us to actively engage our staff in
shaping how our Trust is run, make sure the
views of service users and their carers and
families are central to everything we do, and
better understand the different needs of our
diverse communities to create services more in
tune with local needs. To achieve Foundation
Trust status we had to demonstrate that we
are legally constituted, well governed and
financially viable.
6
6
About our Trust
Victoria Square, Birmingham city centre. (Photo courtesy of CLD)