£2.8bn trusts name shared chair for ‘new era’

Sir Paul Ennals has been appointed as permanent chair of Gateshead Health and Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals foundation trusts. He has been chair of Northumbria Healthcare FT since 2023, and is interim chair at Newcastle.

The three trusts, along with North Cumbria Integrated Care FT, are developing what they call the “Great Northern Healthcare Alliance”, to collaborate on issues including care quality, recruitment, technology, estates, and research.

Sir Paul has more than 20 years experience in the public sector and has spent a significant chunk of his career chairing safeguarding boards. He is also president of the Voluntary Organisations Network North East, and on the board of Net Zero North East England.

He will take up the Newcastle and Northumbria joint roles from July, and the Gateshead post from September when its current chair steps down.

A statement said the move to a shared chair would “support the development of a single, unified voice for the organisations, making decision-making more streamlined and increasing the strategic influence of the alliance regionally and nationally”.

The trusts’ CEOs — Birju Bartoli, Trudie Davies, and Rob Harrison — said: “This is the start of an exciting new era of greater collaboration which will see us develop and deliver plans that will bring some real benefits to local people.”

Since its launch in 2023, the alliance has established a joint committee to strengthen governance to locks in its shared decision-making, and another shared committee to steer delivery.

Each trust insists it will retain its operational independence, but has signed a collaborative agreement which sets out the alliance’s shared objectives. 

They already share a cardiology list, participate in mutual aid on delivering services, and have signed up to the Great North Care Record, a collaboration between the NHS and local government which brings together patient data.