STP lead and long-serving acute chief to step down

Ms Pedder, currently leader of the Wider Devon Sustainability and Transformation Partnership and the Northern, Eastern, and Western Devon “success regime”, will leave both positions in the autumn, it has been announced.

She was previously chief executive of Royal Devon and Exeter Foundation Trust for 19 years, and has spent more than 40 years in the NHS.She stepped down from the RD&E post in spring last year. Ms Pedder was appointed to lead the STP and success regime in spring last year.

Meanwhile NEW Devon CCG chief officer Janet Fitzgerald has also announced she is to stand down for health reasons.

Their departures were announced at different times and are not linked, a CCG spokesman said.

It comes as the Wider Devon STP embarks on the second phase of its acute services review – which has recommended the county’s four acute trusts retain their emergency departments, and proposes a reconfigured workforce structure.

Ms Pedder said: “I had always planned to rebalance working life during 2017, on reaching 60.”

She said the STP “is now sufficiently developed, with strong clinical and managerial leadership in place to take it forward to successful completion”.

Devon was one of three areas placed in the “success regime” in summer 2015, because of several complex problems with health services in the patch.

No successor as STP lead has been announced.

Ms Fitzgerald became chief officer of NEW Devon CCG in December. In an internal message to staff Ms Fitzgerald said she had a “health scare” in April and had to take a short break from work.

“As a result, I have, reluctantly, decided to bring forward my retirement plan,” she wrote.

Her final day with the CCG will be 4 August and no successor has yet been appointed.

NEW Devon CCG is the biggest CCG, with an allocation of more than £1.1bn in 2016-17. It is under NHS England legal directions, and ended 2016-17 with a cumulative deficit of £120m.