New Northern Care Alliance NHS Group of 17,000 NHS staff launches in Greater Manchester

Each Care Organisation under the new Northern Care Alliance NHS Group

The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (PAT), which runs Rochdale Infirmary and Royal Oldham Hospital, has joined forces with Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust to create one of the largest NHS healthcare organisations in Greater Manchester and the North West.

The new Northern Care Alliance NHS Group brings together five local hospitals, 2,000 beds, specialist and acute services, a range of community services, and just over 17,500 staff from two of the biggest NHS Trusts in the country, in what is being described as an ‘exciting opportunity’ to serve a population of over 1 million people under a new arrangement of hospitals and community healthcare services.

The combined workforce for the group includes over 5,000 nurses and midwifery staff, approximately 1,400 doctors, approximately 1,000 members of community and district nursing staff, around 650 members of staff working in A&E departments or Urgent Care Centres, and just under 1,200 Allied Health Professionals, such as therapists, pharmacists and diagnostic technicians.

The Northern Care Alliance NHS Group is being led by Sir David Dalton who has been Chief Executive of both Trusts since taking charge of PAT in April last year. Since April 2016, Pennine Acute Trust has benefitted from joint working and support from Salford Royal under the leadership of Chairman Mr Jim Potter, and Sir David as Chief Executive.

Since its formation in April 2002, Pennine Acute has run four hospitals – The Royal Oldham Hospital, Rochdale Infirmary, Fairfield General Hospital in Bury and North Manchester General Hospital. More recently, it has expanded its provision of integrated and community services in North Manchester and the Rochdale borough.

Salford Royal is one of the top performing NHS Foundation Trusts in the country where Sir David Dalton has been Chief Executive since 2001, leading it to an ‘outstanding’ rating by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in 2015 - the first in the North of England.

It is also the first Trust with integrated acute and community services to earn this rating.

With an operating budget of £1.3 billion, the new Alliance provides the benefits of scale but delivers this locally through multiple hospital sites and local healthcare services through four Care Organisations (Oldham, Bury/Rochdale, North Manchester, and Salford).

Each Care Organisation and hospital site now has its own director leadership team led by a Chief Officer and consisting of a Medical Director, Director of Nursing, and Finance Director.

Whilst the Care Organisations provide hospital care, they play a much broader role in each locality and are supporting the establishment of new integrated models of care. Each Care Organisation is working closely with local Councils to develop Integrated Care Organisations (ICOs) to join together health and care services and shift more care into the community. The Northern Care Alliance NHS Group is strongly placed to support the development of ICOs.

Jim Potter, Chairman of the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group, said: “These are challenging but also exciting times for our patients and staff in our Northern Care Alliance with much work to do, but we have fantastic, skilled and dedicated staff to deliver the agenda.

“Our new group structure of our Alliance, with individual Care Organisations within it, will deliver a local flavor and feel to healthcare delivery across the North East part of Greater Manchester. The benefits that will flow from Group to patients and staff should not be underestimated, not only for day to day service delivery, but also in areas such as staff recruitment and retention, research and development, and the application of IT digital systems and processes into the NHS.

“The recent establishment of a shadow Council of Governors for the Alliance and our Care Organisations will be of huge value in ensuring that good governance is adhered to and maintained now and into the future.”

Sir David Dalton, Group Chief Executive of the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group, commented: “These new local arrangements for our Care Organisations for Oldham, Bury and Rochdale, Salford, and North Manchester place the emphasis for operational management of health services where it matters - in each hospital and locality.

“They strengthen senior leadership support at hospital-level, enabling better engagement with staff and clinical teams. Compared with the previous, more remote Trust HQ, they are closer to the ‘shop floor’, understanding the challenges and issues staff are facing. These teams will build strong relationships with each of our local health and social care partners.

“Together as a new Alliance, and working closely with our partners, we will use this scale to deliver better services that are safe, reliable and high quality, leading to improved outcomes for our patients and other benefits. All of this, together with the spirit of teamwork and can do attitude which exists in all of our Care Organisations and services, will enable us to fulfil our crucial mission of Saving Lives, Improving Lives.

“We generally feel we have made a positive difference for patients and for staff in the 12 months that we have been making improvement. We still have a lot of work to do and there’s still years to come to keep on at this, but we’re doing this because it’s worthwhile - and to be able to see staff saying it feels better, that the data we collect sees it moving in the right direction, it feels good.”

The Northern Care Alliance NHS group will work with its partners in supporting all of the strategies of the GM Health & Social Care Partnership and the priorities of the elected Mayor for Greater Manchester.

Although Salford Royal has a ‘management agreement’ to manage the Pennine Acute, both Trust Boards have delegated their functions to a Group ‘Committees in Common’ (CiC) which operates the new Alliance. While the two Trusts remain statutory bodies, the CiC, which publicly meets every month, effectively manage both Trusts.

In March 2017, Salford Royal's Council of Governors approved bold changes to its own composition, establishing a subcommittee Shadow Group, comprising of all Salford Royal Governors and newly elected Shadow Governors (public and staff) from the Pennine Acute Trust constituencies.

As part of the benefits of creating the new Alliance, Salford Royal has selected The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust as a ‘Fast Follower’ to accelerate digital maturity by sharing software, methodologies and standardizing clinical processes. Deployment aims to begin in 2018.

The Alliance is also implementing a number of Greater Manchester service changes, such as Major Trauma at Salford Royal and high acuity centres at The Royal Oldham and Salford Royal. The Alliance has received confirmation of £48m for a new clinical building at Salford and £25m for a new clinical building at The Royal Oldham Hospital.