Worcestershire has new healthcare trust
By Liz Lockhart
Mental health and community services across Worcestershire will be provided by a newly established 
health care trust.
Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust will provide the majority of the services which were previously provided by Worcestershire Primary Care NHS Trust’s Provider Arm. These services include community hospitals and district nursing, as well as the mental health services which were previously managed by Worcestershire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.
The new combined trust will provide ‘a more efficient and seamless service’, health bosses say. Previously patients and service users would have had to access services from the two different organisations.
The new organisation employs 5,000 staff and has a budget of £155 million.
‘Shaping this new organisation, to enable the transformation of the services it delivers, is an exciting opportunity which will involve close co-operation and partnership working with all of our stakeholders’ said Chris Burdon, chairman of Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust.
‘Our focus will be on the efficient provision of high quality, integrated services across Worcestershire.’ he added.
At its board meeting, last September, the board of the NHS Worcestershire agreed the preferred option for the management of both mental health and community health services.
‘I would like to reassure patients and service users that there will be no sudden ‘radical overhaul’’ said the chief executive of Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, Sarah Dugan.
‘This process is about working in partnership with our stakeholders to build on the excellent services that are already delivered across the county, and further improve the patient and service user experience.’
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