Trusts announce unprecedented merger plans

Cambridgeshire Community Services Trust and Norfolk Community Health and Care Trust approved plans at a joint board meeting today to create a group model. 

CCS chief executive Matthew Winn, who was appointed interim CEO of NCH&C last year, told HSJ establishing a group model structure, with a single board by April 2025, was a first step.

Trust leaders then have ambitions to form a new single statutory organisation by April 2026, but the CEO said there was an acceptance the timescale would be in part determined by a formal process with NHS England beyond the trust’s control, so it could take longer.

While the trusts already have a joint CEO, they still have two boards. They will begin the process to cut this down to one board in the coming months.

The new organisation would have around 6,000 staff and a turnover of £330m, and provide services to 3.5 million people across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Norfolk, Bedfordshire, and Milton Keynes.

This would bring it broadly in line based on turnover with the largest standalone community providers like Central London Community Healthcare, Birmingham Community Healthcare and Sussex Community foundation trusts.

The move is also notable because of a trend in recent years for community services to be subsumed into acute trusts instead of being provided by standalone specialist organisations.

Mr Winn told HSJ: “For a dispersed organisation covering multiple geographies, that’s a reasonable size.

“It’s an unusual arrangement in that we are both NHS trusts [rather than a foundation trust acquiring an NHS trust] and we are choosing to come together. When people talk about mergers not working, they often fail because they are forced upon people.

“But this is not the case here and we have chosen to collaborate because of the similarities in culture, service portfolios and both having outstanding CQC ratings and very good staff survey results.”

Mr Winn has been CEO of CCS since 2007 and was appointed as interim CEO of NCH&C in September 2023.

The trusts set out their arguments for the merger in a document titled A Case for Change (see attached).

The document said a larger trust could drive care improvements by standardising services across a larger geographic area; drive greater financial resilience through economies of scale; and better support workforce retention by being a larger more diverse organisation with more opportunities.

It says: “We will achieve savings by consolidating our non-clinical expenditure and support service infrastructure… we plan to make savings of £4m to £5.5m, realised over a two to three-year period.”