About the Trust

History of Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

The Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust was authorised on 1 May 2008. The predecessor organisation, Somerset Partnership NHS and Social Care Trust, was formed in 1999, and was the first integrated health and social care partnership trust in England.

We have continued to earn the reputation as a forward thinking, innovative trust, for example:

First trust to implement a comprehensive electronic patient record system
Internationally recognised Family Therapy and Family Support Model
Being part of a consortium providing services nationally for the Ministry of Defence
South West Regional provider of the Deaf Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service

Our Vision Statement

Our vision is to be the mental health service provider of choice for the people of Somerset, and increasingly, for the South West.

Our goals are independence, recovery and social inclusion for the people who need our services. We will achieve these by providing excellent, innovative and user-responsive services in partnership with them, their families, carers and other agencies.

Our strategy to achieve this vision focuses on four strategic objectives:

continuous quality improvement;
service redesign to maximise efficiency and deliver effective care through partnership working;
innovation to ensure that we can deliver the mental health services the people of Somerset need, so they are not required to travel outside the county for care;
service expansion into primary care, the provision of secondary care and specialist services to neighbouring populations and wider health and social care services provision;

In delivering our services, we will work to ensure that:

All people involved with the organisation – staff, users, and carers - are valued and treated as individuals.
The Trust is committed to enabling people to live within the community, wherever possible, and to providing accessible and effective services to support users in doing so.
Services are provided in consultation with users and carers, and in partnership with other statutory and voluntary agencies.
Resources are used wisely to ensure best value and effectiveness.
The ways in which staff work are based upon appropriate research and best practice.
The Trust is committed to learning from the views of service users, carers, and others, and to implementing changes as appropriate.

What we do

We provide a wide range of specialist mental health and learning disability health and social care services to over 530,000 people across Somerset. We deliver

Services are provided in partnership with other statutory agencies and a range of voluntary sector providers. Community services are delivered in people’s homes and other non-NHS premises, as well as community team bases.