Former hospital chief to chair second trust

A former trust chief executive has been appointed chair of a second trust in the South East.

John Goulston will take over as chair of Medway Foundation Trust, which has had long-running performance problems and remains subject to NHS England “recovery support”, in the summer.

He was CEO of Croydon Hospital Trust until he retired in 2018 and held the same post previously at Barking, Havering and Redbridge. He is already chair of Kent Community Healthcare FT, where his term ends next year.

Mr Goulston has also been working as a special adviser to East Kent Hospitals University FT, which is itself looking to recruit a substantive chair, since October.

Although there has been a move in several areas nationally to shared leadership and mergers across acute and community services, KCHFT is not the main community provider for the Medway area, which is served by Medway Community Healthcare, a social enterprise.

North Kent Adult Community Service, part of the HRCG Care Group, provides services in Swale, where many patients will access Medway FT for acute services.

Lead governor David Brake said: “John’s experience in non-executive and executive roles within the NHS will be invaluable in supporting the improvements under way at the trust. He joins us at a point in our journey where we need to embed the changes we have made, and drive further improvements for our patients, and I believe he has just the experience and skills we need.”

Medway’s former chair, Jo Palmer, moved to the US in October last year and Mark Spragg has been acting chair since then.