Four hospital ‘CEOs’ set for troubled trust

As previously reported, University Hospitals Birmingham Foundation Trust has been looking to move to a new site-based leadership structure, having different senior teams at each of its four very disparate hospital sites.

Interim chief executive officer Jonathan Brotherton has told councillors four individual CEOs will be appointed across its four sites – Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Heartlands Hospital, Solihull Hospital, and Good Hope Hospital.

The trust is appointing the CEOs over the next two to three months, Mr Brotherton told the Birmingham and Solihull overview and scrutiny committee, having been given a mandate to do so by NHS England.

Mr Brotherton, formerly the trust’s deputy CEO and chief operating officer, said: “Since [UHB’s controversial merger with Heart of England Trust in 2018] the organisation has been operating in a very centralised manner …

“The new arrangements will include hospital-based chief executives that can interface with other local health and social care leaders around [the four sites] in the interest of reforming and developing services for patients at a local level.

“Those hospital chief executives will be part of a broader trust group executive team so there will be corporate responsibility and shared responsibility for ensuring we don’t have a postcode lottery going on for the populations of Birmingham, Solihull, and surrounding areas that we serve.

“While that may sound like a rather transactional approach, that really does start to affect the way people feel about working in the organisation and the culture that we have.”

Mr Brotherton, who was at HEFT before the 2018 merger, said he felt this approach alongside six new non-executive directors and changes to committees would make a major difference to the trust’s culture.

Mr Brotherton added if he was wrong, he would take “full accountability” for not delivering changes.

The site-based leadership model is one that has been deployed at other large acute trusts, including the Northern Care Alliance FT and Manchester University FT.

Last month, the first of three reviews into UHB found its leadership had become “overzealous and coercive”. The second, focusing on culture, is underway.