Integration work drives efficiencies

Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) and North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust (NCUHT) are continuing to integrate their support services and management teams to drive efficiencies across the heath and care system.

As well as facilitating closer working between the two trusts, establishing joint teams is driving efficiencies, with the joint executive team alone saving £336,000 yearly even after the nationally agreed one per cent pay uplift for NHS staff.

The joint team was first established in September 2017, and since its establishment pay scales have been aligned and adjusted to reflect portfolios and responsibilities.

The next step will be to explore the possibility of a joint Board of Directors later in the year.

In the meantime, the chair of CPFT is assuring partners that the governance of the trust remains in place and effective.

Robin Talbot, chair of CPFT, said: “I’m working closely with non-executive directors and the governor’s council to ensure continued support, scrutiny and accountability for the delivery of the trust’s strategies and objectives. This includes ensuring that effective governance remains in place for the board and its sub-committees which will continue as normal in line with the requirements set out within the trust’s constitution. As our regulator, NHS Improvement has been kept informed and they are content with the arrangements put in place within the trust. Our governors are also being kept fully informed.

“A recruitment exercise for a non-executive director with clinical experience was undertaken late in 2017 and a decision on the next steps is due to take place with the nominations committee later this month along with arrangements for addressing the non-executive director vacancies.”