First-time CEO picked by trust

The trust, which runs Peterborough City and Hinchingbrooke hospitals, announced Hannah Coffey will formally take up the role in September.

The move follows previous NWAFT chief Caroline Walker announcing her semi-retirement in March after five years at the helm.

Ms Coffey took on the role as MSEFT acting CEO after Clare Panniker was appointed NHS England regional director for the East of England in 2022. The £1.4bn turnover trust announced this March it had appointed Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust’s Matthew Hopkins to the top job. 

Former MSEFT executive Ms Coffey has extensive experience, having joined as a management trainee in 1997. She has held senior executive roles at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital FT, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals Trust (one of the three former trusts which merged to form MSEFT), and Guy’s and St Thomas’ FT. 

More recently, she was the director of strategy and partnerships at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospital Trust, where she led their provider collaboration and clinical strategy work, before moving to MSEFT in 2021.

Ms Walker took on the reins from NWAFT’s first CEO Stephen Graves, just a year after a challenging merger of two struggling organisations.

During her tenure, the trust began a complex clinical services reconfiguration and major ongoing overhaul of its estate in a bid to boost its bed base by around 200 beds and find a sustainable future for Hinchingbrooke. 

Hinchingbrooke is one of the hospitals built with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete planks and is in desperate need of a rebuild, which is due to happen as part of the government’s New Hospitals Programme. Keeping this rebuild on track will be a key strategic task for the new CEO. 

NWAFT chair Steve Barnett: “Following a robust recruitment process, I am delighted to have appointed Hannah to lead our trust and I very much look forward to working with her.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank Caroline Walker for her support in the past 15 months of my chairmanship and for the way she has championed our trust in her CEO role for the past five years. We wish her a very happy semi-retirement after an impressive 40 years’ service to the NHS.”