Welcome to the first Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals Group (LCHG) column.
You may have seen that on Monday 1 April, Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS) and United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT) came together in a Group arrangement.
This is not a formal merger of the two organisations, but instead brings the Trusts together under a single Board and Executive Leadership Team, with the goal of improving the care that is provided to patients both in the community and in hospitals across Lincolnshire. Both Trusts have retained their separate statutory names and legal obligations.
I am proud to say that last month (JULY), I started in my role as the first substantive Chief Executive of the Group. I have worked in Lincolnshire since February 2020 when I joined ULHT as Director of Nursing. I then became the Trust’s Deputy Chief Executive in September 2021 and the Group Deputy Chief Executive and Executive Chief Nurse in August 2023 ahead of the official launch of the Group arrangement.
I am proud to have been part of the team that supported ULHT to leave both financial and quality special measures in recent years and am excited about the journey ahead and what we can achieve with the new Group arrangement.
I believe the Group signals something different for the population of Lincolnshire and for all of the amazing NHS colleagues that provide care in our hospitals, community settings and in people’s homes.
We absolutely will continue to strive for excellence in care and innovation, but at the same time we will be looking at how we can deliver services differently. We all know that continuing to do what we do now in the way that we do it isn’t something that is sustainable in the long term.
We need to look at how to make sure people don’t get as ill as they perhaps do now and identify how we can look after them earlier on in their illness or disease progression.
This is not going to happen overnight, but work has already begun and we are starting to see some promising green shoots through our urgent and emergency care pathways, in how we care for frail older people and the use of virtual wards.
We have amazing teams working tirelessly across the county to provide the best possible care for the people of Lincolnshire. My vision is that by working differently we can remove duplication and provide people with the right care, in the right place at the right time.
Through this column we will keep you updated about the work that is taking place across the Group and how we can all work together to look after the health of people living in, working in and visiting Lincolnshire.