CEO appointed for £2bn hospital group

Two city acute trusts have announced a joint chief executive.

University Hospitals Bristol and Weston Foundation Trust and North Bristol Trust have announced Maria Kane will be their joint chief in what they describe as a “significant step forward” in forming a hospital group between the two trusts.

Ms Kane, who has been CEO of North Bristol since 2021, will lead the two organisations, which include 28,000 staff and are responsible for budgets of more than £2bn.

The two trusts announced late last year they would share a chair and joint chief executive as part of a two-year process of setting up the new group model. Ingrid Barker was appointed joint chair of the trusts last month, and in March, the two trusts published a joint clinical strategy.

Bristol is among several “hospital groups” to have formed in recent months — with trusts in Newcastle, Leicester and Bath, Swindon and Wiltshire also taking similar steps.

The two Bristol trusts have previously stressed the move is “not a merger”, but it is now the smallest city that still has two independent general acute trusts. 

More than a third of trusts are now sharing a chair, CEO or both.

Ms Kane said she was “delighted and humbled” by her appointment, adding: “By working in even closer partnership, and taking advantage of their geographical proximity, [the two trusts] can build on what they have achieved to date and become even better together.”

Ms Kane is one of the most experienced serving NHS chief executives — her first CEO role was at Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust in 2007, before she moved to North Middlesex University Hospital Trust in 2017.

Ms Barker welcomed the appointment, adding: “It was especially important to me that the joint chief executive is someone who truly understands the benefits of partnership working and who had an established track record of delivering large scale organisational change in a collaborative and patient focused way.”