New Identity for Trust

Gloucestershire’s NHS Mental Health Trust strengthens its commitment to working together with local people to improve the health and wellbeing of Gloucestershire.

Gloucestershire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, one of the first NHS Mental Health Trusts in England to meet the standards to become a Foundation Trust is to change its name from April 1 2008 and will be known as 2gether NHS Foundation Trust.

The name 2gether was chosen after seeking the views of staff, patients and governors and will ensure that the Trust maintains a strong, easily recognisable identity which also represents its strong partnership approach to working.

Since achieving NHS Foundation Trust status the trust has been working closely with its Governors and members to determine how best to make an even more positive contribution to the County.

1 in 4 of the Counties population will experience a mental health problem at some point in their lives and the trust is committed to working in partnership with the community to ensure that its services are well known and responsive to local needs.  The Trust believes that this is also captured in its new motto
“Making Life Better”.

As a Foundation Trust it has a commitment to be more accountable to its patients and has devolved some of its key decision making to its 27 governors and around 5,000 members who represent patients, staff, carers and members of the local community. 

Shaun Clee, Chief Executive, said “The new name represents us really well, it provides a strong local identity capturing our values and our core purpose “Making life better”. We believe it provides a fresh positive feel and represents our increased focus on supporting mental health, wellbeing and recovery.

We are proud of being part of the NHS.  Whilst we provide a range of high quality care, we are conscious that we can always do better.  Communicating effectively with service users, carer’s and the public is an area that we know that we can make further improvements on and we are committed to do that.  We are not simply changing our name, we are strengthening our identity, improving the awareness of the public of the NHS service available to them and inviting Gloucestershire people to work together with us to achieve the services they deserve.

Our new status brings challenges which we are ready to meet with confidence and enthusiasm. Our aim is to achieve the best outcomes for patients and carers alike.

Some of the things people will notice as we introduce the new identity in time for the launch on 1st April are the staff ID badges, displaying the new logo and a photo to enable service users, carers and the public to know who they are talking to. As 85% of the individuals we work with will never go into hospital, many of our staff visit service users at their homes or in other locations, and a new 24 hour helpline has been set up for anyone who may want to be sure of the identity of the person visiting them”.