Joint director appointments present opportunity to forge new relationship with frontline trusts
11 December 2018
- NHS Improvement (NHSI) has announced the joint directors of the new NHS England (NHSE) and Improvement regional teams.
- Three of the seven new directors are former NHS trust chief executives.
- The new national and regional directors are expected to formally lead their integrated directorates by April 2019.
The regional directors have been named as follows:
- South West – Elizabeth O’Mahony, currently NHSI’s chief financial officer.
- South East – Anne Eden, already joint NHSE and I regional director for the South East.
- Midlands – Dale Bywater, currently NHSI’s regional director for the Midlands and East.
- East of England – Ann Radmore, currently Kingston Hospital Foundation Trust chief executive.
- North West – Bill McCarthy, currently deputy vice chancellor at Bradford University and chair of Bradford Teaching Hospital Foundation Trust and a former NHS England and Department of Health executive director.
- North East and Yorkshire – Richard Barker, currently NHSE’s director for the North of England.
- London – Sir David Sloman, currently Royal Free London Foundation Trust.
Responding to the joint director appointments by NHS England and NHS Improvement, the chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, said:
“The appointment of the new joint national and regional directors for NHS England and NHS Improvement presents an opportunity to forge the new relationship with frontline trusts that arms length body leaders have said they want to create and that the recent Kerr report has highlighted is much needed.
That new relationship needs to be based on understanding and supporting frontline trusts rather than reflexively reaching for command and control, regulation and performance management.
“That new relationship needs to be based on understanding and supporting frontline trusts rather than reflexively reaching for command and control, regulation and performance management. We need a new approach that eliminates duplication between the arms length bodies; creates a single, coherent, system level view spanning provision and commissioning; and quickly starts to reduce the current levels of unnecessary burden placed on trusts.
“This will be a fundamental change and will require the newly appointed directors to behave very differently. They will need to create a much more collaborative relationship with trusts where listening and responding to what frontline leaders need is the key focus. A good first step would be a collaborative project between the new directors and frontline trusts to define the mutual behaviours, systems and processes that will govern relationships in the new regions, as recommended by the Kerr report.
They will need to create a much more collaborative relationship with trusts where listening and responding to what frontline leaders need is the key focus.
“Trusts also need the new NHSE/I leadership team to set realistic financial and operational targets, make rapid progress in tackling current workforce shortages and recognise that trusts are currently working flat out to deliver outstanding care to the patients they serve.
“As the membership body for all 227 frontline trusts, we look forward to working closely with the new Directors to deliver this far reaching agenda.”