Updates from Group Board

Tuesday 3 March 2026

Dear colleague

Welcome to Updates from Group Board for the Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group (LCHG). This Group is made up of Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS) and United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (ULTH).

The Group Board operates as the joint board and decision-making body for both statutory organisations and this update is designed to inform colleagues and stakeholders of the discussion and decisions being taken at both the Group and individual Trust level.

We held our most recent Group Board meeting on Tuesday 3 March 2026, which was open for members of the public to join virtually. The full Board meeting papers can be found on the Trust Board papers page on the website.

Service story: The Board received a presentation about the Black and Asian Maternal Health Group, which is a multi-professional team working across the Lincolnshire system that exists because evidence shows black and Asian women across the UK experience inequalities in maternity care with increased mortality and morbidity among women and babies.

Working together with patients with lived experience, this group is transforming care for these women. Projects the group has led include work around improving cultural awareness in breastfeeding, an antenatal education review and work to improve access to preferred food whilst women are maternity inpatients. The group has also led on enhanced staff training, including sharing patient stories and feedback to improve staff awareness of the patient experience and working with student midwives to raise awareness.

Celebrating Group success – Ward accreditation- The Intensive Care Unit at Lincoln County Hospital was celebrated in the Diamond Quality Accreditation Scheme with a Bronze Award. This recognises wards and departments that demonstrate consistently high standards of patient care and evidence of their improvement journey, measured through a variety of metrics.

Ward Sister Sian Lynch presented on the outstanding work undertaken around empowering the team to make improvements and learn from incidents. This included talking about pieces of work to systemise the ward stock room and listening to and learning from patient and staff feedback.
She described the focus the ward has on workforce, staff wellbeing and psychological safety at work, that has empowered the team to deliver improvements in patient care, including reductions in skin integrity incidents. She described how they have a new approach to learning from incidents, where the whole team is involved in sharing so that they can work together to prevent harm to patients, as well as integrated work they have done with maternity services in recent months.

Group chair arrangements: This meeting was the last formal Board meeting for Group Chair Elaine Baylis, who reaches the end of her term of office on Tuesday 31 March. NHS England have agreed that Rebecca Brown, current Group Deputy Chair, will step into the role of Acting Group Chair from Wednesday 1 April for a period of six months, whilst arrangements are made to recruit into the role on a permanent basis.

The Board took a moment to recognise the outstanding contribution Elaine has made to healthcare in Lincolnshire, having played a pivotal role in the leadership and development of the Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals NHS Group. As Group Chair since its establishment, and previously as Chair of both Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS) and United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT), she has provided continuous and steadfast leadership across more than a decade of significant organisational change.

Group Chief Medical Officer: The Board also offered recognition and thanks to Group Chief Medical Officer Professor Colin Farquharson, who has made the very difficult decision to leave the Group on Tuesday 31 March for personal health reasons. In his time with the Group, he has led a number of important pieces of work, supporting medical colleagues across the Group, developing relationships both internally and externally and playing a key role in our Executive Leadership Team.

Colin’s full-time deputy, Professor Ciro Rinaldi, will step into the role of Interim Group Chief Medical Officer for a period of up to 12 months, whilst a recruitment process is carried out for the substantive role.

Good news stories:

• Following a major service redesign delivered through the Clinically Led Workforce and Activity Redesign (CLEAR) Programme, stroke care across Lincolnshire is undergoing significant transformation. This work will improve patient outcomes, reduce length of stay, and enhance community-based rehabilitation and support. Through a system-wide approach, the programme has enabled the Group to streamline pathways, strengthen multidisciplinary working, and redesign both acute and community stroke services. As a result, the Lincolnshire system is now better positioned to deliver more responsive, coordinated and high-quality stroke care that supports recovery across the entire patient journey.
• A final report has now been received following a recent Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations (IR(ME)R) inspection for ULTH undertaken by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The findings provide strong evidence and assurance of compliance across the majority of standards reviewed. Inspectors highlighted numerous areas of good practice, and recognised the commitment to continuous improvement, particularly through the effective use of audit. Staff engagement throughout the inspection process was commended, and the collaborative working across multiple disciplines within the services was noted as a key strength. The Group will submit its improvement action plan in accordance with the required IR(ME)R timescales.
• Full planning approval has been granted for the development of a new Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) in Boston, located on the former Boston United football ground at York Street. The Group also secured consent for the site purchase, and a 20-week demolition phase has begun. This £24.9 million purpose-built facility will significantly expand diagnostic capacity for the county, providing additional X-ray, CT, MRI and general medical ultrasound services.
• The development of a £4 million extension to the existing Lincoln CDC remains on track, with a go-live planned for April 2026. This new space will be used to deliver more planned care, including some elective orthopaedic clinics which will relocate from the Outpatients Department at Lincoln County Hospital.
• Following NHS England’s announcement earlier this year regarding changes to the Bowel Cancer Screening Programme, the Lincolnshire Bowel Cancer Screening Team who are based at ULTH have been among the first nationally to introduce the lowered threshold for home-testing kits. This change will support earlier detection of potential signs of bowel cancer and improve outcomes for patients in Lincolnshire. The home-testing kit, known as the faecal immunochemical test (FIT), is offered to all people over 50 years old and checks for blood in a small stool sample.
• The Group Community Tuberculosis (TB) team were invited to attend the National Tuberculosis Summit on Thursday 26 February to showcase their improvement programme, which focuses on online consultations and wider digital innovations. As part of the service redesign, an online consultation pilot has been implemented, offering video appointments as an additional option for TB consultations. Early outcomes from these changes include improved patient access, reduced travel time, and greater flexibility in how patients receive care.
• ULTH has recently partnered with Wilder Doddington following the launch of The New Orchard – the first Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) Habitat Bank in the area. This initiative will provide an accountable and transparent source of BNG units to offset the environmental impact of new developments, including the new Endoscopy Unit at Lincoln County Hospital. The Group will be planting 100 trees as part of the orchard, starting at the end of this year. Through this approach, the Group will meet regulatory requirements while also ensuring long-term, measurable benefits for wildlife and habitats across Lincolnshire, supporting the wider green agenda.

Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST) Annual Board Declaration and NHS England Maternity Care Bundle: The Board received a number of reports connected to oversight and quality of maternity care in Lincolnshire.

Firstly, the Board signed off the annual declaration against NHS Resolution’s CNST Maternity Incentive Scheme. Compliance requires full achievement of all elements within each of the ten safety actions, and the Board agreed a declaration of non-compliance for this year. This is because, during routine evidence review, the Trust identified one eligible perinatal death that was appropriately managed and reviewed through local processes but was not notified to MBRRACE-UK within the required seven working days. This late submission represents non-compliance with Safety Action 1. The Trust can demonstrate compliance with the remaining nine safety actions as detailed within the year-end report, which is something to be proud of.

In addition, in January 2026, NHS England published the updated Maternity Care Bundle, a new national framework aimed at reducing maternal mortality and serious maternal morbidity across England. The framework sets out the minimum standards of care that all NHS maternity services are expected to implement by March 2027. It focuses on five key areas of clinical practice, including improving access to urgent obstetric and maternal medicine services, strengthening the monitoring and management of maternal deterioration, and enhancing support for maternal mental health. The Group’s maternity and neonatal services are actively working to ensure this framework is fully embedded across the organisation, with work underway to align local pathways, training, and governance to the national requirements.

NHS National Cancer Plan for England: The National Cancer Plan for England was launched in February, which provides strong national momentum for the ongoing work in the Midlands to improve cancer outcomes through earlier diagnosis, wider access to innovative treatments and more personalised, equitable care. Cancer services across the Lincolnshire system are already delivering many of the plan’s priorities, including strengthened diagnostic capacity through Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs), extended imaging and endoscopy hours, and streamlined pathways such as tele-dermatology and FIT testing.

Operational pressures: Services across the Lincolnshire health and care system have been extremely busy over January and February, with high levels of demand and significant operational challenges especially in urgent and emergency care. We have seen a 5.78% increase in attendances at county Emergency Departments and a 1.23% increase in Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) activity compared to the previous year. This has resulted in challenges in meeting national urgent and emergency care access targets in recent months.

In the area of planned care, performance around 18 week waits and 52 week waits is strong, but the Group continues to experience challenges in delivering some cancer and diagnostic targets.
The Board wished to formally recognise and thank all teams for their exceptional hard work, professionalism and resilience during the last few very pressured months.

Supporting our staff:

• The Board formally received both Gender Pay Gap and Disability Pay Gap Reports for LCHS and ULTH for the year 2025/26.
• The reports showed that the LCHS gender pay gap has shown a slight improvement, and is better than the national average, and the Trust maintains full compliance with job evaluation standards.
• In ULTH the picture is more complex, with a gender pay gap of 12.6%, which is an improvement from last year, but women remain under-represented in the highest quartile.
• Ethnicity pay gaps across both trusts are increasingly driven by workforce composition and workforce representation in senior clinician posts.
• Following a letter from NHS England issued last year, all acute provider Trusts were asked to meet the requirements of a new 10-point plan to improve the working lives of resident doctors. A 12 week progress survey was completed in December 2025 to assess ULTH’s progress against the 10 points, and the results demonstrate significant organisational improvement, with compliance now at 81%. Further work is planned to support continued progress and ensure sustained compliance with the 10-point plan, including awaiting national guidance on some areas.
• Dr Arun Sahota was welcomed at this Board meeting for the first time, as Board-level representative for resident doctors. It was described that he and other Trust leads have been invited to a national event to talk about the work done locally, which is being used as an exemplar nationally.
• This year, the staff flu vaccination rate for both Trusts has been above national stretch targets, and performance amongst the best in the East Midlands. 55.8% of LCHS staff have been vaccinated, and 56.58% of ULHT staff (compared to a ULTH vaccination rate last year of 35%).
• The Board heard about a national update made to Annex 20 of the NHS Terms and Conditions Handbook in January 2026, which clarifies that the Band 5 to Band 6 progression mechanism applies not only to midwifery, but also explicitly to nursing and allied health professions (AHPs). The effect of this clarification is that Band 5 graduate entry roles are required to be reviewed via Job Evaluation between 12 and 24 months post-qualification. It also addressed longstanding concerns that nursing progression has been inconsistently applied across the NHS. This presents a strategic opportunity to strengthen clinical leadership, capability and retention.
• The recent staff consultation on the establishment of a new Patient Services Hub (PSH) to bring together and modernise outpatient and inpatient administrative services has now closed. Results of this are expected in the coming weeks.

Partnership working:

• During January, an executive-to-executive meeting took place between the Group and St Barnabas Hospice, providing a valuable opportunity to strengthen relationships and explore areas of shared strategic interest. The discussion focused on enhancing partnership working, particularly in relation to patient experience, service integration, and future opportunities for collaborative delivery across the local system.
• Since the last Board meeting, the Group has continued to meet with the NHS England regional team as part of the monthly Provider Review Meeting cycle. These discussions have remained constructive providing a regular forum to review progress, discuss emerging pressures, and ensure alignment with regional priorities and expectations. The regional team has acknowledged the Group’s improvements across operational performance. In addition, the Group’s continued focus on financial discipline and delivery has been recognised, with further assurance given regarding the actions in place to support in-year and longer-term financial sustainability.

Group Model Development Programme closure: The Board received the full close-down report from the Group Model Development Programme, which moves group working into full business as usual and delivery. The papers described key achievements that have been made as part of the work to bring the two Trusts together as a Group, including the development and embedding of a new operating model and leadership structures, strengthening of governance and decision-making and huge progress in harmonising policies, systems and processes across both sides of the Group to enhance patient care and experience.

The Board acknowledged that this has been a complex multi-year endeavour and places the Group in a much stronger position to deliver its three strategic aims going forward- Better Care, Better Opportunities and Better Health.

Finance: At month 10 the year-to-date position for the Group is an £8.4m deficit, which is £2.6m adverse to plan. The Group have delivered actual surplus positions between month 7 and 10, however the plan required a further improvement and so the Group is required to increase savings in these last few weeks to return to financial balance by the end of the financial year. This is a challenging but achievable position.

The three key areas of internal focus to support the revenue position are:

• Variable income delivery
• Delivery of cost improvement programme (CIP), which has delivered savings of £41.9m – £0.7m lower than planned. Some schemes are not delivering as planned and further mitigations are being found to ensure delivery.
• Workforce controls, including introducing medical spend caps, vacancy control process, rostering controls and delays to start dates.

The Group has so far delivered capital expenditure of £28.4m in-year, which is £21.1m lower than planned. This is mainly driven by delays in approval, but it is anticipated that this will be recovered by the end of the financial year.

If you have any feedback on the discussions at the Group board, please contact [email protected]

Kind regards
Elaine Baylis
Group Chair

Karen Dunderdale
Group Chief Executive