Gill Harris appointed Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust new Chief Nurse

Gill Harris, Chief Nurse for The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

Gill Harris has been has appointed the new Chief Nurse of the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Rochdale Infirmary, North Manchester and Fairfield General Hospitals and The Royal Oldham Hospital.

Ms Harris, who is currently working as the Chief Nurse for NHS England, North of England, will start at the Trust on 1 April. She will take over from Mandie Sunderland who is leaving the Trust at the end of January to move to a Chief Nurse post in Nottingham, which is closer to her home.

Ms Harris said: “I am absolutely delighted to be joining the team of dedicated clinical professionals at Pennine to provide every one of their patients with the best nursing care possible. From my previous role as Director of Nursing for the north of England, I have seen that Pennine is a trust that is fully committed to improving the care and treatment of all of its patients and I am really excited to be involved in driving the continuous improvement of its services forward even further once I take up my new role.”

Dr Gillian Fairfield, Chief Executive at The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “On behalf of the Trust I am really pleased to welcome Gill in joining us as a senior member of the management team and on the Board of Directors. She has a wealth of knowledge and experience in nursing and clinical governance, patient safety and clinical improvement both at ward level and strategic level. I am sure she will make a positive impact with both the patients and staff when she joins us here in April. Our Chief Nurse post is a really important role not only in leading our 4,000 nursing and midwifery staff, but also in helping us drive up and sustain high standards of care for our patients.”

The Trust employs 9,000 staff, including around 4,000 nurses across its hospitals and community services.

In addition to taking charge and leading the Trust’s qualified and non-qualified nursing staff, midwifery staff, healthcare assistants and trainee nurses, Ms Harris will take over responsibility for clinical governance, quality and patient safety, infection control and prevention, safeguarding, and patient experience.

She will also take forward the Trust’s new “Three Steps to Excellence” Nursing and Midwifery Strategy which was launched last year. 

In her current role Ms Harris leads on delivering high quality care and measuring impact, this includes leading on the Open and Honest Care: Driving Improvement Programme. She is also currently leading on a national work stream which includes Safer Staffing and Nurse Contact Hours and a member of a number of committees and boards, both regionally and nationally. Ms Harris has also chaired a number of the Keogh reviews and is now actively involved in CQC reviews and inspections.

Prior to this, she was seconded to NHS North of England SHA cluster as chief nurse. Ms Harris has also held the posts Deputy Chief Executive, Director of Nursing and Performance and Director of Infection Prevention and Control at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust.