Hospital trust chair announces resignation

David Hooper, who has been in the chair at the north London trust since 2007, will stand down in April.

Since then the widely-respected chairman and former chief executive Clare Panniker have managed to turn round a position of recurrent deficit and historic debt and saw quality ratings improve.

The trust is currently undertaking the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Clinical Strategy, which will see some £50m of activity transfer to the North Middlesex from neighbouring Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals Trust.

The reconfiguration process has seen multiple delays and political controversy over the past decade.

Ms Panniker has now taken up the chief executive’s job at Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals Foundation Trust.

Before serving at North Middlesex Mr Hooper had been chair of Basildon and Thurrock for 10 years. The trust was in the first wave to be authorised by Monitor in 2004.

The trust has recently appointed Ealing Hospital Trust’s Julie Lowe as permanent chief executive to replace Ms Panniker.