Trusts to appoint joint CEO and chair in bid to stem delayed discharges
Two trusts have agreed to appoint a joint chair and chief executive after reviewing “collaboration and integration” across the patch.
Wirral Community Health and Care Foundation Trust confirmed to HSJ it will move to a shared leadership model with Wirral University Teaching Hospital FT.
It said both would remain statutory organisations but has not stated whether other shared executive roles will follow. It is expected the appointments will be made before the end of the year.
Karen Howell, who had led WCHC since 2015, left to join scandal-hit Greater Manchester Mental Health FT as CEO earlier this year. Finance director Mark Greatrex has served as interim chief executive since then, while Gerald Meehan is its chair.
Janelle Holmes has been WUTH chief executive since June 2018 and Sir David Henshaw its chair since February 2019.
The community trust decided not to advertise Ms Howell’s post after Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board commissioned a review into “integration opportunities” with WUTH.
Its initial findings, published in July, found the Wirral system had a good understanding of improving service delivery and productivity but had not “proactively addressed” them except for some aspects of urgent care.
The review has since concluded and recommended the two trusts establish an “integration programme board to oversee integration and collaboration between both organisations”.
WUTH has struggled with relatively high delayed discharge rates in recent years, and some in the patch hope combining with WCHC could help mitigate this problem.
WCHC is the second smallest provider in the region and one of the smallest in the country. The £115m turnover trust employs around 1,700 staff and serves a population of approximately 324,000 people.
Several independent community trusts have moved to shared leadership, or merger, with local acutes in the past few years. This includes nearby Warrington and Halton; Lincolnshire; and Richmond in London.
In Warwickshire, most physical community services are being transferred from the mental health trust to two acute providers.