Three set to leave health trust board
Three non-executive members of the board at the trust that runs Newark Hospital have announced they are stepping down at the end of their current terms.
The vice-chairman of Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Mrs Bonnie Jones, will leave on Wednesday, senior independent director Mr David Heathcote on November 3, and non-executive director Mr Iain Younger on November 30. The trio has served for three to five years each.
The chairman of the board, Tracy Doucét, resigned earlier this month.
The departures follow the intervention of independent regulator Monitor in the running of the trust, which is struggling to cope with multi-million pound payments to the private finance initiative used to redevelop King’s Mill Hospital, Sutton-in-Ashfield.
It was also revealed this month that the trust recalled 79 breast cancer patients after mistakes were made with test results, which could have led to them not being offered the best treatment.
Monitor’s appointment as interim chairman of the trust, Mr Chris Mellor, said the decisions to leave were personal ones taken by the individuals, and thanked them for their service.
He said: “They have helped the board steer the organisation through its formative years as a foundation trust, through the creation of the fantastic King’s Mill Hospital, and towards the focus on quality and safety within our hospitals.
“I would also like to reassure our local communities that the continuity and quality of patient services will be maintained at all times in our continued development.”
The MP for Sherwood, Mr Mark Spencer, who called for the resignation of the whole board after the revelation of the faulty test results, welcomed the departures but said he still felt a completely new start was needed.
He said: “It seems odd to me that from a board of 12, it is only three of the non-executive directors who have stood down.
“I stated that I believed the whole board should stand down and I have yet to be dissuaded of this. I feel strongly that both the new chairman and public confidence would benefit from a clean sweep.”
