Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust

On this page

• Overview
• Shared direction and culture
• Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
• Freedom to speak up
• Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
• Governance, management and sustainability
• Partnerships and communities
• Learning, improvement and innovation

At our last assessment we rated this key question requires improvement. At this assessment the rating has changed to good.

The children and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) is well led with visible, inclusive leaders, strong governance and a positive, open culture. Staff feel supported and able to speak up, and equality, diversity and inclusion are well embedded. Partnership working and innovation are strong. However, long waiting times remain the main strategic risk despite clear mitigation plans.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service had a shared vision, strategy and culture. This was based on transparency, equity, equality and human rights, diversity and inclusion, engagement, and understanding challenges and the needs of people and their communities.

The trust was committed to delivering safe, effective, and compassionate mental health care for children and young people across Leicester, Leicestershire, and Rutland. The trust shared purpose was to provide timely access to high-quality, evidence-based interventions while promoting early intervention and prevention. The trust worked collaboratively with families, schools, and system partners to ensure integrated care met diverse needs and reduced health inequalities. The trust aimed to empower children young people and their families, improve outcomes, and continuously learn and adapt.

The trust’s values were compassion, respect, integrity, and trust. Leaders told us they were inclusive, open, and provided a supportive environment where staff felt safe to speak up and learn from experience, and where children and families were treated with dignity and empathy. We saw the trust vision and values displayed around the sites visited.

The trust championed diversity, equity, and human rights, ensuring services were accessible and responsive to all communities. Strong leadership prioritised staff wellbeing and professional development.

The service had inclusive leaders at all levels who understood the context in which they delivered care, treatment and support and embodied the culture and values of their workforce and organisation. Leaders had the skills, knowledge, experience and credibility to lead effectively. They did so with integrity, openness and honesty.

Leaders were visible in the service and approachable to children and young people and staff. Leaders demonstrated a clear vision for delivering high-quality, person-centred care and communicated this effectively across the service. They fostered a culture of openness, compassion, and inclusion, where staff felt respected and supported.

Leaders had the skills, knowledge and experience to perform their roles. Leaders promoted equality and diversity, providing staff with training on inclusive practices and cultural awareness. The Learning and development service and organisational development team delivered, facilitated and provided a comprehensive range of opportunities for staff to improve and enhance their skills and knowledge, to enable them to deliver a quality service and person-centred care.

Leadership development opportunities were available, including opportunities for staff. The trust offered a range of leadership and management courses and online career development tools. The trust supported staff, including psychologists and psychotherapists, to stay up to date with their Continuing Professional Development (CPD) by providing protected development days.

The trust had recruited Change Champions to identify improvements. Change Champions feedback highlighted that how staff act, communicate, and treat each other was vital. In response, the trust co-designed Leadership Behaviours for all staff, recognising that everyone is a leader with a voice and responsibility to make a difference.

The service fostered a positive culture where people felt they could speak up and their voice would be heard.

The trust maintained a Freedom to Speak Up framework, underpinned by a Board-approved policy and supported by designated Freedom to Speak Up Guardians. Governance arrangements ensured that concerns raised through multiple reporting channels, including those from child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), were logged, monitored, and escalated appropriately. Regular thematic analysis and quarterly reporting to the trust board provided assurances of compliance with national guidance and demonstrated a commitment to transparency, responsiveness, and continuous improvement in fostering an open and inclusive culture.

The trust extended Freedom to Speak Up week into a month-long initiative in October 2025, hosting staff drop-in sessions to encourage open dialogue and safe reporting of concerns

Staff consistently told us they felt encouraged to speak openly within their teams and raise concerns with their line managers. They were confident that, if they raised concerns, they would be listened to and supported.

The service valued diversity in their workforce. They work towards an inclusive and fair culture by improving equality and equity for people who work for them.

Leaders were committed to fostering an inclusive workforce that reflected the diversity of the communities it served. The service adhered to trust-wide equality standards, including the Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES) and Workforce Disability Equality Standard (WDES), ensuring fair treatment and equal opportunities for all staff. Recruitment and progression processes were monitored to eliminate bias and promote representation across protected characteristics. For example, the trust had introduced inclusive recruitment panels and anonymised shortlisting to reduce unconscious bias.

There were equality and diversity champions within the service. Staff could access equality networks, regular feedback mechanisms, mandatory equality, diversity, and inclusion training.

Some staff told us they were able to work flexibly to support personal circumstances such as caring responsibilities and health issues. Staff morale was high. Staff reported feeling supported and empowered to raise concerns.

The trust provided extensive range of support to staff to maintain their health and wellbeing; CAMHS had health and wellbeing champions, who promoted and signpost colleagues to local and national health and wellbeing support offers. They help ensure that health and wellbeing discussions take place in team meetings and provide drop-in sessions for staff. Staff who were struggling with their mental health and wellbeing could access mental health first aiders. In 2024, the provider supported 200 members of staff to receive formal training to become mental health first aiders.

The provider undertakes equality monitoring of staff within the service to ensure it is diverse in its make-up and representative of the child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). Leadership promoted a culture of respect and openness, encouraging staff to raise concerns and contribute to service improvement. Examples include participation in the Race, Ethnicity and Cultural Heritage (REACH) Race Equality Network, Neurodiversity and Disability Network, and monthly Equality Impact Assessment workshops to embed inclusive practice.

Quality improvement initiatives focused on reducing barriers to access and improving equity of experience and outcomes. For example, engaging with communities and families where English is not the first language to understand what resources they would find helpful. Some staff were working on an initial pilot with the crisis team for designing information with animation and subtitled in both English and Bengali.

The service had clear responsibilities, roles, systems of accountability and good governance. They used these to manage and deliver good quality, sustainable care, treatment and support. They act on the best information about risk, performance and outcomes, and share this securely with others when appropriate.

Leadership and governance within child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) demonstrated a clear vision and strong commitment to delivering high-quality, person-centred care. Leaders were visible, approachable, and inclusive, promoting a culture of openness, equality, and continuous improvement. Governance systems were robust, with clear accountability and effective use of performance and risk data to inform decision-making.

Leaders and staff highlighted that neurodiversity, particularly attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, continued to be a significant contributor to waiting times and the trust was working with ICB colleagues to understand approaches in other areas, recognising that improving this position was a shared responsibility across the system. It was noted that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder related waiting times were a national issue.

At the public board meeting in September 2025, trust leaders raised concerns about the increasing number of children and young people waiting more than 52 weeks for assessment or treatment. This issue was subsequently escalated to the Quality and Safety Committee in November 2025, where the committee reviewed the prolonged waits in detail. The service presented ongoing quality improvement work designed to understand the causes of delay, strengthen oversight, and provide assurance regarding the impact of long waits on outcomes for children and young people. Committee members sought assurance that the actions identified would reduce waiting times and mitigate associated risks to safety, wellbeing, and access to timely care.

The service had business contingency plans with action cards for responding to disruptions such as loss of telephones, adverse winter weather or heat waves.

The service understood their duty to collaborate and work in partnership, so services work seamlessly for people. They share information and learning with partners and collaborate for improvement.

Directorate leaders engaged with external stakeholders such as commissioners, Healthwatch, and Integrated Care Boards to strengthen oversight and drive improvement. Leaders and staff demonstrated strong collaboration with system partners to deliver integrated, person-centred care for children and young people. Staff worked closely with schools, social care, primary care, safeguarding hubs, and voluntary organisations to ensure continuity and joined-up support across pathways.

Staff worked closely with accident and emergency departments, local children’s hospital, children’s and adolescent mental health inpatient unit and the 136-suite place of safety. A 136-suite place of safety is a safe hospital room where the police can take someone who seems very unwell in a public place. It is used to help keep the person safe and to let mental health staff check what support they need.

Staff worked with local universities, displaying photography projects in CAMHS bases and media projects.

The trust collaborated with the Violence Reduction Network in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LRR) around knife related crime. The network created a set of videos from interviews with people with lived experience of knife crime. These were delivered in schools across LRR as part of workshops delivered by school nurses and the Violence Reduction Network. The trust had 2 members of staff featured in the videos along with 1 service user.

The service focused on continuous learning, innovation and improvement across the organisation and local system. They encouraged creative ways of delivering equality of experience, outcome and quality of life for people. They actively contribute to safe, effective practice and research.

The service demonstrated a positive learning culture, with staff and leaders using incident themes, feedback and outcome data to inform improvements. Digital developments, including the ‘Waiting Well/Thriving While You Wait’ resources and the option of digital duty contacts, supported children, young people and families during long waits and improved accessibility.

Young people contributed to service development through the Youth Advisory Board and wider participation workstreams, helping ensure improvements reflected lived experience. Staff were encouraged and supported to innovate through quality improvement activity and organisational development initiatives, including the use of Change Champions to help embed new ways of working across CAMHS.

The trust had quality improvement initiatives which focussed on understanding barriers to accessing mental health support for CAMHS and changing the way the service operates. For example, feedback from friends and families asked for more appointments to fit into everyday life outside the hours of 9am to 5pm. In response, the trust made changes and the CAMHS service has extended working days and hours from Monday to Sunday with opening times of 8am to 8pm.