Trusts ‘could cause services break-up’

Children’s trusts could fragment services and suffer high staff
turnover, the Royal College of Nursing has warned.

Senior RCN officer Karen Didovich told a children’s trust
conference last week of her concerns that the successful pilot bids
could further fragment children’s services because applicants were
from health, education and social care backgrounds.

She said councils needed to be cautious in how they developed
trusts and should not ignore the impact that changes had on service
users, as happened in the shaping of care trusts.

Didovich added that councils setting up children’s trusts and
intending to second staff from different departments should ensure
that their human resources strategies were clear.

“Councils need to ask where staff are going to be, how they are
going to work and who they are responsible to,” Didovich said. “The
seconded employee needs clarity.”

She warned that when services moved to new types of partnership
working, there was often a “significant turnover of staff within
the first six months” because of the effect of change on working
practices.

The conference was organised by the Harrogate Centre for Excellence
in Health and Social Care.