NHS Providers comment on coronavirus

Who we are

We are the membership organisation for NHS hospital, mental health, community and ambulance services that spend £80 billion of the £120 billion NHS annual budget and employ 800,000 of its 1.2 million staff.

We are a charity, funded by members (NHS trusts and foundation trusts), to represent the views of our member trust leadership teams and speak on their behalf. The public comments we make will always reflect the views and experience of frontline trust leaders.

We also promote and share good practice and are a central repository for sharing the approaches trusts are developing to tackle the unprecedented challenge the NHS is facing.

Who we are not

We are not part of the government or any of the NHS arms length bodies, such as NHS England and NHS Improvement, although we do maintain close contact and dialogue with key partners at these organisations in order to influence and shape the environment in which our members operate. We talk to NHS national leaders to understand their perspective. 

We are not involved in organising, co-ordinating or setting the policy for any operational aspects of the NHS or the operating activities of our members, such as organising the purchase or distribution of personal protection equipment or the coronavirus testing regime.

We do not represent primary care, social care, independent healthcare providers or frontline NHS staff and cannot therefore speak on their behalf. We will, though, comment on issues involving them, through the perspective of trust leaders.

We are not medically trained and do not have clinical expertise. Some of the issues we comment on inevitably involve us touching us on clinical issues, but we do so from a non clinical perspective.

What you can expect from us

We have 100% of trusts in voluntary membership, allowing us to speak with unrivalled authority and credibility on issues affecting trust leadership teams. We are in constant dialogue with our member chairs and chief executives and can therefore offer an accurate an up to date perspective on how the NHS trust response to coronavirus is developing.

We do not comment on what is happening in individual trusts. We offer a  national level, sector wide, picture. We can also provide context and explanation – for example we can explain what declaring a critical incident means and why a trust might call one, but we would not comment on why a specific trust has done so at a particular time. 

Additionally, our close engagement with the government and central NHS leadership, combined with our in-house policy expertise, enable us to offer authoritative commentary in support of an informed and constructive debate on the NHS and our wider health and care system.

Our details 

If you have a media enquiry please email press@nhsproviders.org or call 020 7227 1174 

Or talk to one of our press office team:

Nicole Hardy
Senior Media and Communications Officer
nicole.hardy@nhsproviders.org
020 7227 1160 or 07715 077141

Adam Brimelow
Director of Communications
adam.brimelow@nhsproviders.org
020 7227 1172 or 07802 752308

Lisa Ward
Head of Communications
lisa.ward@nhsproviders.org
07543 525466

For out-of-hours queries, please contact the on-duty press officer on 020 7227 1174.