CCG chief to lead STP

Mr Turner joined South Lincolnshire CCG in May last year. He has now been appointed to spearhead the service reconfiguration programme following the retirement of Allan Kitt, former chief officer of South West Lincolnshire CCG, at the end of March.

Mr Kitt has also been appointed as interim accountable officer of South West Lincolnshire CCG, in addition to his current role.

United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Lincolnshire Community Health Services Trust and Lincolnshire Partnership FT and four commissioning bodies - Lincolnshire West CCG, Lincolnshire East CCG, South West Lincolnshire CCG and South Lincolnshire CCG – form the STP.

It aims to centralise acute services and build urgent care centres outside A&E departments in Lincolnshire to tackle a looming financial gap of £182m by 2020-21.

However, it has already run into problems after Lincolnshire County Council refused to support the proposals “in their current form”.

Council leader Martin Hill has written to all senior officers to challenge the credibility of the proposals, which depends on securing £205m in capital funding.

The councilor also questioned the need for seven NHS organisations in the county, calling them “an unsustainable and quite unnecessary overhead”.

The STP was due to start 12-week public consultation this month but the timetable has been pushed back until later in the year.

Before joining the CCG Mr Turner was the chief executive of Scotland’s version of NHS 111 during a disastrous IT transformation .

HSJ approached the STP to discuss Mr Turner’s appointment to lead the STP and the next steps for the proposals but was told there would be no comment.