New hospitals chief in call for collaboration
Saturday 22nd May 2010, 11:30AM BST.
Shropshire’s new hospital boss has stressed the need for close collaboration within the county NHS to safeguard the future of services at the Royal Shrewsbury and Telford’s Princess Royal.
Adam Cairns, who has been appointed chief executive of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust, has also highlighted the need to continue driving down infection rates.
He said he would be setting a “realistic timetable” for the trust achieving Foundation status, which will give it more independence and the public greater say in how services are developed.
Mr Cairns, is currently chief executive of the Airedale NHS Trust which runs the Airedale General Hospital at Keighley in West Yorkshire. He said he was hoping to take up his Shropshire post in early July.
Asked what he saw as the major challenges, he said: “It is making sure that we can build on the potential of the two hospitals so that we are a really superb health provider, keeping services local, keeping them in the county,and adding to them.”
Mr Cairns said there some longstanding “knotty” issues to be tackled, such as the re-organisation of services across the two hospitals.
Closer working together was vital and needed to involve health staff inside and outside of the hospitals, GPs and other organisations, he said.
He was coming to the trust with a philosophy that “we all have a contribution to make” but the best way forward was through collaboration.
Mr Cairns also wants to see closer co-operation within the county’s “health community” to improve the experience of the many patients who are suffering from long-term conditions.
On the issue of MRSA and other superbugs, he said patients were right to expect to be treated without the fear of contracting infection and the trust had an “absolute duty” to try to ensure this was the case.
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