Chris Horner

Head of Communications and Engagement @Manchester Local Care Organisation

Manchester, GB

I lead comms and engagement for the Manchester and Trafford Local Care Organisations - the partnership organisations that provide NHS community health and adult social care in Manchester and Trafford.Our staff provide over 1.5 million patient and service user contacts and are developing some pioneering new models of care. My role is to lead a small but perfectly formed comms team that helps enable them to do this in the best way possible and promote their fabulous work.We have developed a positive staff engagement culture bringing NHS and local authority staff together as one team for the first time. I deliver an excellent provider communications function to help enable our teams to provide great care through communication to service users, and a public and community engagement remit that empowers communities to improve their health and helps tackle health and wellbeing inequalities. A key part of my role with LCO is to encourage great partnership communications across multiple stakeholders. I work as part of the senior leadership team to do this. Amongst the team\'s key achievements are developing best in practice communications for community services, securing national network coverage of out-of-hospital care and improving staff engagement rates.I am employed by the NHS through Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, but work across the NHS and social care in this role. I also cover communications for the University Dental Hospital of Manchester.