Three trusts to share CEO and chair

Great Western Hospitals FT, Royal United Hospitals Bath FT, and Salisbury FT will make the joint appointments by January next year, with a view to implementing the new model by April.

According to papers for a board meeting next week, the three trusts are not recommending a full merger or a change in legal structure as it would not “offer value for money”. 

Instead, each trust will retain its own board and a deputy chief executive attached to it, reporting to the group CEO. A joint committee will oversee the work of the three trusts.

Board papers state that the new leadership model will enable the system to be “proactive, not reactive”, and create opportunities to respond to the “unprecedented financial environment”.

The three trusts make up all the acutes in the Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care System. The ICS has agreed to a £35.7m deficit plan for the 2024-25 financial year, with an elective activity target of 118 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

The three acute trusts within the ICS have been working together as part of a provider collaborative, known as the Acute Hospital Alliance, since 2018. The AHA has previously outlined plans to procure a shared electronic patient record system across the three trusts.

The previous substantive CEOs of Salisbury and Great Western Hospitals, Stacey Hunter and Kevin McNamara respectively, departed in January. They have interims in place – Lisa Thomas and Jon Westbrook – and paused recruitment earlier this year to look at “opportunities for different approaches”.

The CEO of RUH Bath is Cara Charles-Barks, previously CEO at Salisbury, who trained as a nurse in Australia and has worked in senior management there and in the UK.

HSJ research in January found that of the total 211 trusts of all types, 71 (34 per cent) had a joint chair or CEO, or were moving to it shortly. Several more have followed since.