Wednesday, 5 December 12 Sir Peter Carr Chair NHS Trust ...

egularly participated in top team meetings with the DH at Richmond House, with the leadership ofthe then Healthcare Commission, and also, of course with Monitor.After ten years as Chair at Basildon and Thurrock I had to relinquish the position. I was bothfortunate and proud to be offered the post of Chair at North Middlesex University Hospital, thehospital in which I was born, and I took up post there on March 1st 2007.When I arrived at NMUH the Trust was in a fairly parlous state, in the previous years it hadaccumulated a significant historic debt, had run consecutive deficits, and was achieving poorly onquality ratings. The fairly newly appointed Chief Executive, Clare Panniker, was coming towards theend of a period of maternity leave, and the Board had been designated weak by the health authority.Over a period of five years Clare and I completely turned the trust round. We made financialsurpluses for five years in a row, and repaid wholly our historic debt. Our quality ratings improveddramatically, particularly with regard to mortality rates, and from high incidences of MRSA and C.Diffwe have moved to a situation where there has not been an MRSA case for well over 500 days, andC.Diff is well below target.Soon after I arrived we signed major PFI agreement to replace about 60% of the old hospital, much ofwhich was over 100 years old. This PFI is affordable within our revenue stream, and was delivered ontime and on budget and opened in June 2010. It is a building that is admired by almost all who enterit.Alongside this we have coped with the continuing problem of the Barnet, Enfield and Haringey (BEH)Clinical Strategy. This was agreed by the trusts and the PCTs in December 2007. Since then therehave been numerous delays caused by local and political opposition, and also by the moratoriumplaced on such schemes by the Secretary of State following the change of government in 2010.These delays introduced a major uncertainty into our planning, and halted the progress that we weremaking towards achieving foundation trust status. This uncertainty was only finally removed aroundEaster time this year, and we have just commenced another development (£80m) to construct newwomen’s and children’s services on the site as part of the implementation of the BEH strategy. This isdue to open in late 2013.The performance of NMUH through all this has been exemplary. Plans and business cases have beenproduced on time and within budgetary forecasts, and at no time have we been responsible for anydelay.Clare Panniker left us in September this year, and we have continued, performing well with herdeputy now taking on the Acting CE role. Last week I was able with my NEDs to offer the permanentCE role to Julie Lowe, currently at Ealing. She intends to start with us in early February.Chairman David Hooper Acting Chief Executive Lance McCarthy 2