Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust (BEH) and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust (C&I) have announced they are to form a strategic alliance.
This new partnership will aim to benefit patients and staff and enable the two organisations to develop more efficient integrated care pathways together and provide better outcomes for patients.
This is not a merger and both Trusts will remain distinct organisations with individual authority and control. However, greater joint working will bring benefits, including improved staff recruitment and retention by sharing talent between the two Trusts and offering joint staff rotation, as well as opportunities for staff development and career progression.
Discussions for a closer working relationship have been ongoing for some time and the Trusts say they are already used to successful partnerships. BEH, for example, leads on the North London Forensic Consortium, a group of five providers working as one system to reduce out of area placements, whilst C&I runs the new Women’s Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit at St Pancras Hospital for the north central London area.
In a joint statement Angela McNab CEO of C&I and Jinjer Kandola BEH’s Chief Executive say: “We’re excited about the possibilities this alliance opens up for both our organisations. It will benefit patients as well as staff and enable us to deliver the very best care by working in partnership.
“Partnerships of this nature have worked very effectively in other parts of London, and we see our future as working more closely together, developing the very best patient-centred care.”
NHS Regional Director for London, Sir David Sloman, describes the alliance as hugely positive, adding: “We know already that having a shared vision and working collaboratively together in this way can deliver major results and significantly improve the lives of the local population.
“Our focus in the coming months will be on improving some specific patient pathways, and potentially exploring working at greater scale in one or two corporate areas to see if we can achieve more together.”
