Joe Teape and Chris Balch

We are pleased to present our annual local account summary, our first as Chairman and Chief Executive at Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust.

We are proud of our partnership and, importantly, our people who work tirelessly every day to support people in our community to access high quality adult social care when they need it. This summary provides an opportunity for us to celebrate our achievements and the challenges of the past year at a time when demand continues to grow, while managing our financial pressures.

While people’s attention is often focused on our urgent and emergency care system, the work of our adult social care teams is central to our belief that care as close to home as possible benefits everyone.

There is much to be proud of, particularly in our work to support people to remain independent at home, to receive the care and support they need in their community and supporting them to get home from hospital when they no longer need acute care. Technology-enabled care and our virtual wards are critical in helping us to deliver 21^st century care, in line with the government’s shift of moving from analogue to digital, and you can read more about these exciting innovations in this report.

Thank you to our teams for all you do.

Chris and Joe

Joe Teape Chief Executive and Chris Balch –Chairman, Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust