New leader for team to help London hospitals achieve new status

A NEW member of the team is joining NHS London to help hospitals in the capital make vital savings to achieve foundation trust status.

Heather Lawrence, current Chief Executive of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, will be focusing on helping the 18 trusts who are yet to achieve foundation status make £1.2 to £1.4bn of savings over the next few years.

With clear deadlines outlined in tripartite formal agreements and tighter NHS budgets, the scale of the challenge is a large one for trusts and NHS London. The work will also help all NHS providers meet London’s QIPP requirements.

Ruth Carnall, Chief Executive of NHS London, said: “Delivering a change in productivity is key to securing health services in London which meet the growing needs of our population at a time of unprecedented financial pressures.

“Heather brings years of experience of delivering this sort of improvement at Chelsea and Westminster, and I am greatly looking forward to working with her to help all of our providers to reach their full potential in this area.”

Work done at NHS London to analyse the productivity of acute trusts in London compared with similar trusts across the country has raised a need for this to be improved. Heather will lead a new unit focused on improving trust productivity in London.

She will divide her time between her role as Chief Executive at Chelsea and Westminster and her new role with NHS London from mid-January until she leaves Chelsea and Westminster this summer after 12 years there. She has a track record of improving clinical quality and financial performance by working with clinical and non-clinical staff, which has been shown in the strength of the performance at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust.

Heather Lawrence said: “I look forward to working in partnership with Ruth and colleagues throughout London at this challenging time for the NHS in the capital.

“I have been very privileged to work with so many talented and dedicated staff at Chelsea and Westminster over the last 12 years and I hope that I can help make a real difference in this new role.”

Source: NHS London