- Michael Morgan, Interim Chief Executive to present
Minutes:
Michael Morgan, Interim Chief Executive, Rotherham Foundation Trust, gave the following update incorporating clarification of questions by Select Commission Members:-
Staffing
- Louise Barnett had been appointed as the new Interim Chief Executive Officer and would be taking up the position on 18th November, 2013
- Jan Bergman had been appointed as the Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Director of Transformation
- 3 new Non-Executive Board Directors appointed – Joe Barnes, Lynne Hagger and Barry Mellor
- The complete team from Bolt Partners would continue their work in the Trust until the Board meeting on 18th December, 2013
- All of the Non-Executive Directors were in place; there was still another group of Non-Executive members that had been with the Trust for several years. The new Directors were interviewed by both the Board and Trust Governors and would not have been invited for interview if it had not been felt they had the experience for the tasks facing them
Options
- There was no preferred option. The Trust, like any other Trust, would probably prefer to move forward on their own without other changes but whether the organisation would be able to do that had yet to be seen especially with the budget restrictions
- There may be services between other Trusts in the region that would work better grouped together. Often Trusts had recruitment issues for specialist clinicians. It may be that clinicians worked between 2 Trusts similar to the current way of Rotherham providing ENT to Doncaster. This could be done under Option 1
- All services would be looked at and considered
- No discussions had been held with the Council as yet. The options to be considered by the Board in December are high level and would take a tremendous amount of work in order to get a 5 year strategic plan in place from January onwards.
- There would be a consultation process to ensure the community were fully informed
- Privatisation had not been put forward as 1 of the options
- Since the turnaround team had been in place, 75 nurses had been recruited. It had also been established that a further 35 were required. A recruitment drive was underway
- The proposed changes to the 11 CSUs had been implemented and now consisted of 4 Directorates. The 4 Clinical Directors would now sit on the Board but would not have voting rights but it is important to have clinical input.
- Rotherham was not alone in facing financial challenges. All the regional Trusts would have to work together and do so in a way that was good for patients that prioritised excellent quality of care within the amount of funding available through the NHS for each of the Trusts
- A specialist had been brought in to work on the Electronic Patient Records system. Rotherham was now well on its way to having such a system and would be much further ahead than others
- There would be additional car parking spaces for the Urgent Care Centre but it was not known whether there would be charges for parking
Michael was thanked for his attendance.
Resolved:- (1) That Rotherham Foundation Trust inform the Chairman in writing as to whether there would be car parking charges imposed for the new Urgent Care Centre.
(2) That a special meeting be held in January, 2014, to which the new Inerim Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Rotherham Foundation Trust should be invited.