Acute chair and CEO take over at community provider

The chief executive and chair of a North West acute trust are taking over a neighbouring community provider, the organisations have confirmed.

CEO Janelle Holmes and chair Sir David Henshaw, who currently lead Wirral University Teaching Hospital Foundation Trust, will now also head up Wirral Community and Health and Care Trust with immediate effect.

It comes after former WCHC boss Karen Howell left to join the troubled Greater Manchester Mental Health Foundation Trust earlier this year.

The community trust held back on advertising Ms Howell’s post while Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board commissioned a review into “opportunities for collaboration and integration” with WUTH. The review recommended that the two organisations appoint a joint chair and CEO, and establish an integration board to drive closer working.

Until now, finance director Mark Greatrex had served as the community trust’s interim chief executive while Gerald Meehan was its chair. Both remain at WCHC as chief finance officer and deputy chair respectively. Both trusts will also remain statutory organisations.

Sir David said: “We are committed to working to fully maximise the range of benefits of integration and collaboration using a single leadership model.

“In particular, it is the positive impact on patient experience and care which matters most. Working together, we want to provide seamless and targeted care, reduce handoffs and waiting times, minimise duplication, and ensure patients are treated in the right setting and location.”

Ms Holmes added: “We want to amplify the best of what takes place both in the community and in the acute trust whilst remaining absolutely focused on those opportunities for greater collaboration and integration between both organisations and our partners.”

WUTH leaders will seek to reduce the trust’s longstanding challenge of high delayed discharge rates through this joint model.

WCHC is the second smallest provider in Cheshire and Merseyside and one of the smallest in the country. The trust operates with a £115m annual turnover and employs around 1,700 staff.

The long-anticipated move in the Wirral comes after an NHS England deputy director was appointed CEO of another pair of acute and community trusts on the patch.