Minutes of the VSS Health and Wellbeing Committee
Thursday 11th September 2025
MS Teams
HWB Committee Members Present:
Sandra Horley (SH) VSS Board Member & Committee Chair
Catriona MacArthur (CMcA) VSS Board Member
Elaine Pollock (EP) Independent Committee Member
VSS Officers in Attendance
Nicola Nugent (NN) VSS Head of Health and Wellbeing
Karen Morgan (KM) VSS Health & Wellbeing Case Manager
Deirdre Scullion (DS) VSS Health & Wellbeing Case Manager
Carol Carmichael (CC) VSS Community Partnership Manager
Rosalyn Jones (RJ) VSS Human Resources Manager
Maria McKeown VSS Service Development & Reporting Manager
A Welcome
SH welcomed and introduced EP as the new independent member of the Committee bringing additional clinical expertise as a Social Worker in safeguarding and service development.
Apologies
Tara Lewsley VSS Head of Learning & Growth
B Minutes of Previous Meetings
The minutes of the previous Health and Wellbeing Committee (HWC) meeting held on 22th May 2025 were agreed, with minor amendments proposed by the Chair .
C Action Points
Action point updates provided on the outstanding action points, noting that 3 actions have been closed with the remaining on track for completion. NN agreed to forward dates for Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) and Mother and Baby Institution, Magdalene Laundries & Workhouses (MBMLW) training to Committee members.
D Clinical Governance (Verbal update NN)
NN advised that the VSS Clinical Governance Policy in the papers was shared for information purposes, having been reviewed and approved by CEO AW in advance of the open call for funding in September. The HWC were content with this approach.
Client Risk Reporting – Q1 (April 25- June 25) No individual on client risk register. No safeguarding incidents were reported. No Serious Adverse Incidents (SAIs). NN noted that whilst there is a reduction in challenging engagements in comparison to the previous year any calls of a challenging nature can be distressing for staff. NN advised that a number of external factors particularly in relation to controversial aspects of the draft Bill to establish a public inquiry and redress scheme for Mother & Baby Institutions, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses (MBMLW) were contributing to the challenging nature of calls.
EP inquired if call handling staff are trained to manage challenging calls. NN advised that call handling staff are provided with a comprehensive induction that includes the mandatory requirements such as protect life and safeguarding as well as trauma training and specific call handling training. Debrief protocols are also in place where staff have access to line management support, Case Manager support and clinical supervision, should this be required.
DS further advised that call handlers are kept updated regularly on any circumstances that may increase volumes or bring specific queries to VSS.
CC advised that clinical governance compliance checks will recommence with the appointment of community providers following the open call for funding in April 2026. Each community provider will be subject to pre-contact checks with clinical governance forming part of this process. Each provider’s governance arrangements will be assessed against as VSS Clinical Governance Framework.
NN advised that the bi-annual check of community providers’ policies and procedures will take place during Summer 2026.
E Training and Development
RJ advised that Trauma I and II training has been rolled out to all staff with mop up sessions completed in early September. This training is delivered by in-house trainers and can therefore be provided to new staff as and when they join the organisation.
KM advised EP that she would be in touch to arrange suitable dates for the training.
RJ further advised that Safeguarding training has been rolled out by in house accredited trainers to those requiring refresher training in line with VSS Safeguarding Policy.
CC advised that the workforce development training programme (PEACEPLUS funded) continues to be developed for the sector to address training needs. In the first instance, mandatory training needs (safeguarding, protect life etc) will be identified with appropriate training scheduled. CC advised that WAVE training continues to form part of the programme with training in Betrayal, Psychological and Developmental Trauma. In parallel, a training needs analysis of the sector is being completed with a training plan to be developed.
NN further advised that a scoping exercise was underway to identify Complex Grief training as this need was identified during co-design sessions with the sector. CMcA advised of a contact at Cruse Bereavement Service who delivers this training and agreed to forward the details to NN.
Quality Mark update
The GOLD Quality Mark action plan and its associated actions were presented to the committee. KM confirmed that a detailed task list, including named owners for each action, has been developed to support progress toward the application process. NN advised that a Trauma Informed Policy and a Service User & Stakeholder Engagement Policy have been drafted and will be submitted to the Committee for review in November.
CMcA noted the need to be mindful of pressures on staff and workloads that this additional work will bring given the competing priorities with the open call.
F Service Development Update
MMcK advised that the Monitoring & Evaluation team has carried out extensive analysis over several years on individuals reporting no improvement across Talking and Complementary Therapies. In relation to Talking Therapies, reviews have explored a wide range of factors, including:
· Demographics
· Trauma type
· Therapy types
· Dual diagnosis
No consistent trends have been identified across these reviews. A Power BI dashboard has since been developed to support regular monitoring of CORE data, with plans to extend this to HIA and MBMLW cohorts.
Q4 reporting provided further insight into the 40% of individuals who did not demonstrate a reliable improvement. A large proportion of this group recorded a more positive post-score, indicating some progress, but not enough to meet the threshold for reliable improvement.
For Complementary Therapies, MYMOP data is now being captured in more detail. While still in early stages, emerging themes among those not reporting improvement include external life stressors such as caring responsibilities and serious health diagnoses.
While no systemic issues have been identified through historic or current analysis, we recognise that not all individuals will show clinical improvement — particularly given the complexity of trauma experienced by the population we support.
Importantly, many individuals still experience meaningful progress, even where reliable clinical change is not recorded.
It was proposed that this action point close, with the understanding that any future findings of significance will be flagged to the Committee as part of ongoing service monitoring and development.
The Committee agreed to close the action point. Data will continue to be monitored with any trends identified findings reported back to the HWC.
G Review of Progress Against Delivery
The Committee noted the heavy use of acronyms within the report. It was agreed that efforts would be made to provide the full terminology going forward.
H Employee Wellbeing
RJ advised that 8 staff recently participated in a volunteering opportunity at Mencap; this proved to be a great team building exercise which will feature in the monthly newsletter. A Macmillan coffee morning is also scheduled to take place later in the month to offer another opportunity for staff to get together. RJ noted the importance of social connection in our post pandemic, hybrid environment in which loneliness can pose risks to staff.
RJ further noted that the introduction of the CEO 2min updates has also been beneficial in keeping staff connected (informed?).
I AOB
Date of next meeting
Next HWC meeting to take place on 12th November 2025 via MS Teams.