New chief executive of Newcastle Hospitals revealed

The “outstanding” rated foundation trust said Dame Jackie’s appointment was approved by its council of governors at a meeting today.

She replaces Sir Leonard Fenwick, who was sacked by the FT for gross misconduct last year, amid accusations of bullying.

Dame Jackie announced in January she was stepping down from her current role as chief executive of University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay FT.

In a statement at the time Dame Jackie, who was honoured at the end of last year for services to healthcare, said she was leaving to pursue “a number of other interests”.

Newcastle upon Tyne said a start date for Dame Jackie was still to be confirmed.

Newcastle Hospitals has an annual turnover of more than £1bn, and is a member of the Shelford Group of the 10 leading teaching hospital providers. Its chair, professor Sir John Burn, led the recruitment after replacing the previous chair Kingsley Smith in December.

Sir John said: “I am delighted that we have appointed Dame Jackie Daniel as the trust’s new chief executive. She will bring a wealth of experience to the role, and I am looking forward to working with her to lead the organisation onto further successes and the next phase of its development.”

Dame Jackie said: “Newcastle Hospitals is a trust with long and enviable reputation for the quality of the services it provides and the excellent skills of its staff. I am excited to be appointed to the role of chief executive and for the opportunity to work with its board, council of governors, and all staff to further develop this outstanding organisation.”

She became chief executive at Morecambe Bay in 2012, and in 2015 led it out of special measures. It was rated good in February 2017 as it continued to recover from a high profile care scandal.

Since his departure, Sir Leonard’s role has been filled jointly by medical director Andy Welch and executive director of business and development Louise Robson.

UHMB announced this week it had appointed Aaron Cummins, its current deputy chief executive and finance director, to the top job.

Jim Mackey, the chief executive of Northumbria Healthcare Foundation Trust, which neighbours Newcastle, and who finished a two year secondment at NHS Improvement last year, had been linked to the Newcastle chief job.

He has not commented on whether he wanted the role, but told HSJ it would be nice to see in the north east “a partnership [between trusts] in the way that you’ve got in Manchester, in Birmingham and other places emerging”. He said Newcastle and Northumbria should “go into a process of collaboration” and added: “There’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to have two outstanding organisations working together.”