Joint Chair - Camden & Islington NHS Foundation Trust and Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust
In line with the Partnership between Camden & Islington NHS Foundation Trust (C&I) and Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust (BEH), closer working arrangements are being developed. As such, the Trusts are seeking to appoint a Joint Chair.
Below is more information on the role, its remit as well as further information on both organisations and their future ambitions.
Role of NHS Boards and Joint Chair
NHS Boards play a key role in shaping the strategy, vision, and purpose of an organisation. They hold the organisation to account for the delivery of strategy and ensure value for money. NHS Boards are also responsible for assuring that risks to the organisation and the public are managed and mitigated effectively. Led by an independent non-executive chair and composed of a mixture of both executive and independent non-executive members, the Board has a collective responsibility for the performance of the organisation.
Additionally for Foundation Trusts, the Council of Governors represents the needs and priorities of patients, service users, carers, staff, and local communities.
The purpose of NHS Boards is to govern effectively and in so doing build patient, service users, public and stakeholder confidence that their health and healthcare is in safe hands. This fundamental accountability to the public is delivered by building trust:
- In the quality and safety of health services
- That resources are invested in a way that delivers optimal health outcomes
- In the accessibility and responsiveness of health services
- That patients, service users and the public can help shape health services to meet their needs
- That public money is spent in a way that is fair, efficient, effective, and economic
Joint Chair Role
To carry out the role effectively the Joint Chair will cultivate a strong, collaborative partnership with the Boards of both organisations, in particular building strong relationships with the Joint Chief Executive and Non-Executive Directors as well as with key external stakeholders in Camden, Islington, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey and the wider North Central London Integrated Care System (NCL ICS).
Many responsibilities in this role description will be discharged in partnership with the two Deputy Chairs and the Joint Chief Executive. It is important that the Joint Chair and Joint Chief Executive are clear about their individual roles, as well as their respective responsibilities towards their unitary Boards.
Working in partnership with the Joint Chief Executive, the Joint Chair will ensure that the Board has a strong vision and collaboration between both organisations and will act as a role model for a culture which is inclusive, respectful, and reflecting the Trusts’ vision and values in every interaction. The Joint Chair is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the population the Trusts serve and the wider systems in which the organisations sit receive the best possible care in a sustainable and integrated way.
Responsibilities of the Joint Chair
The Joint Chair has a unique role in overseeing the two unitary Boards and as a Foundation Trust, the Council of Governors at C&I. The role combines the duty to ensure effective governance, consistent with the Nolan principles and NHS values, whilst overseeing the delivery of a long-term vision and strategy for both organisations and the partnership between the two Trusts. The Joint Chair will enable both Trusts to harness the strengths of each other, sharing innovation and opening opportunities for greater collaboration for the benefit of the populations the Trusts serve. Fundamentally, the Joint Chair is responsible for the effective leadership of each Board and will be pivotal in creating the conditions necessary for the effectiveness of the two Boards, both collectively and individually.
Central to the Joint Chair’s role are the following key areas of responsibility:
- Provide highly effective, visible, and authentic leadership of the Board working as a joint team of Executive Directors and the Non-Executive Directors in each individual Trust
- Work with the ICS and the Boards of both organisations to support the development of a strategy to improve the health of the populations the Trusts serve by leading the organisations collectively and holistically, acting as a catalyst for change and ensuring the services delivered are appropriately specified, supported, and resourced
At Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust (BEH) we provide integrated mental health and community health services to the people of North London, as well as some services regionally and nationally.
We employ more than 3,300 staff, which makes them us of the largest employers in the area. Last year we helped care for more than 126,000 people. In 2020-21, their income was £338 million.
BEH provides services for young people, adults, and older people from over 20 sites. We support people to overcome the hurdles they face with their health and well-being and help them get back into the community and to live as independently as they can. We follow an ‘enablement’ approach to providing care, which means BEH give people the skills they need to look after themselves with their support in the community. When they need a higher level of care, BEH provides that on their wards.
BEH provides a wide range of local and more specialist mental health services, including helping people with personality disorders, drug, and alcohol recovery, children’s mental health issues, dementia, eating disorders, learning disabilities, and suicide prevention.
We also run the North London Forensic Service (NLFS), which the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated as Outstanding. It treats and cares for people in the criminal justice system who have mental health conditions. NLFS is also embedded in Pentonville, Wormwood Scrubs, and Brixton prisons in London, and Springhill and Grendon prisons in Buckinghamshire.
In addition to delivering mental health care in these five adult prisons, we provide mental health services at Aylesbury young offenders’ institution. We are also the lead provider for a group of five trusts delivering secure forensic inpatient services in North London. This ‘New Models of Care’ partnership brings together regional providers of NHS England-commissioned specialist services in order to improve the quality of patient care.
In Enfield, we run a wide range of community health services for physical health difficulties, including district nursing, diabetic clinics, speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, an award-winning Care Home Assessment Team, community paediatric nursing, and palliative care.
BEH Strategy
We developed our ‘Fit for the Future’ Trust Strategy in 2018-19, setting out the direction of travel for the next five years to ensure they meet the needs of their patients, staff, and community.
We updated our Trust Strategy in spring 2021 to reflect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and wider changes across the NHS nationally and locally. Their four Strategic Aims defined in their Trust Strategy are:
- Excellence for service users
- Empowerment for staff
- Innovation in services
- Partnerships with others
Annual Report
https://www.beh-mht.nhs.uk/news/annual-report-and-accounts-2020-21/1784
Board Papers
https://www.beh-mht.nhs.uk/trust-board-meetings-and-papers.htm
Trust Strategy
https://www.beh-mht.nhs.uk/downloads/About%20us/Publications/Trust-Strategy-Summary-A5-Stakeholders.pdf
Main Website
https://www.beh-mht.nhs.uk/
Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust (C&I) provides high quality, safe and innovative care to our patients in the community, in their homes or in hospital.
We provide services for adults of working age, adults with learning difficulties, and older people in the London area. We currently deliver the majority of our care to residents in the London Boroughs of Camden and Islington. However, we also provide a substance misuse and psychological therapies service to people living in Kingston.
Our Trust is also a member of University College London Partners (UCLP), one of the world’s leading academic health science partnerships.
In addition, we have specialist programmes which provide help and treatment for:
- Veterans living in London
- Young people caught in the cycle of gang culture
- Older people living with dementia and other age related mental health conditions
We are proud that our organisation is recognised internationally for the quality of its research and innovation. Over 40% of our consultants hold joint academic posts and are engaged in research across a wide range of mental health arenas. This research, often conducted with the help of our patients, ensures we are leaders in evidence based treatment and services, meaning we can provide some of the world’s most up to date therapies to aid service user recovery.
We are a lead provider for educational placements in north London, and work in partnership with local universities to deliver both education and research projects as well as creating together the workforce of the future. This provides a great environment for our staff to innovate and deliver projects which transform patient care.
Services
Our services are split into three divisions. This makes it easy for patients and GPs to access the right sort of care. Our three divisions are:
- Hospital
- Camden Division (incorporating the Services for Ageing Mental Health)
- Islington Division (incorporating the cross-borough Substance Misuse Services)
Annual Report
https://www.candi.nhs.uk/about-us/corporate-information/annual-report
Board Papers
https://www.candi.nhs.uk/about-us/corporate-information/publications-and-reports
Clinical Strategy
https://www.candi.nhs.uk/about-us/corporate-information/our-strategy-and-objectives/clinical-strategy
Main Website
https://www.candi.nhs.uk/
Our Partnership
- The ambition for our partnership is to make a demonstrable difference to our service users, local residents and staff. Working as one voice for mental health, we expect to strengthen our influence over the strategic direction of travel in North Central London, ensuring that health and social care resources are fairly allocated to meet the needs of people with mental illness and health problems
- We want to be rooted in our local communities, working closely and consistently with borough-based integrated care partnerships and more local neighbourhood and primary care networks, as well as the NCL Integrated Care System
- This local connectivity will be vital to tackling health inequalities. A key focus for the partnership will be addressing inequities in access to and outcomes from mental health services and care
- It will also form a key plank in our anchor institution ambitions – contributing to local social and economic development
- We aim to become the main provider of all age mental health services in all boroughs, both by expanding our partnership and embedding integrated arrangements for services with other organisations. This will put clinicians and service users at the heart of service design and delivery
- Our aim is to take increasing responsibility for commissioning all age mental health services, bringing the quality and financial benefits seen in specialist areas, such as forensic services and Tier 4 CAMHS, to more general mental health services. Such responsibilities will involve developing new governance arrangements to oversee commissioning functions and budgets with a range of partners, including local authorities, as well as other NHS organisations
- At the centre of everything we do will be the quality of our services, which we want to ensure are outstanding, and recognised as such by regulators. We see the partnership becoming a centre of excellence with top class research and education facilities, and a reputation for innovation
- We serve a diverse population and aim for our leadership and workforce to be reflective of that diversity. We expect to increasingly recruit, and offer career pathways to, local residents
- It is critical that our staff find the partnership a great place to work, so that we are able to recruit, and retain, the highest calibre of people in a range of professions and roles. The well-being of our staff is of vital importance, alongside fair opportunities for career development and progression. Equality, diversity and inclusion will be at the heart of what and how we develop
- We will offer our service users and staff an excellent environment for care and treatment, continuing organisational programmes to develop modern, fit-for-purpose buildings for inpatient and community services and research facilities. The partnership will be digitally enabled, quick to adopt and utilise new technologies that support our service users and staff, using data and information to more effectively plan and operate services
- We will direct an increasing proportion of our resources to front line and clinical services, generating efficiency savings that can be re-directed by reducing overheads
North Central London Integrated Care System (NCL ICS)
To deliver the Long-Term Plan in North Central London, the ICS model has been developed to provide joined-up health and care that involves even closer collaboration between local NHS organisations, councils and other groups, such as charities and community groups. Together, the System will take collective responsibility for managing resources, delivering NHS standards, and improving the health and wellbeing of local people.
Our ICS will bring together:
- Primary and specialist care
- Physical and mental health services
- Health and social care
By working together in this way it means we can:
- Provide better, more joined-up care for residents
- Provide care that is tailored to individual needs
- Help people to live healthier lives for longer
- Help people to stay out of hospital when they don’t need to be there
Joint Chair
Strategic Leadership
In their strategic leadership role, the Joint Chair is responsible for:
- Developing the partnership between the two Trusts, ensuring a shared vision and strategy to drive forward the shared agenda to deliver the key priorities under the partnership
- Ensuring the Boards and Council of Governors play a part in developing and determining each Trust’s vision, values, strategy, and overall objectives to deliver organisational purpose and sustainability
- Providing leadership necessary to retain and strengthen a culture within both organisations which aligns with the values of the NHS and where the Trusts’ own visions and values are reflected and modelled in his/her personal and in the Boards’ behaviour and decision making
- Ensuring that the obligations to and the interests of stakeholders and the wider community and population are always understood and balanced
- Facilitating the effective contribution of individual Directors whilst ensuring that grounded debate, due process, and constructive challenge has been applied at all stages of decision making
- Leading both Boards in providing entrepreneurial leadership to the Trusts within a framework of prudent and effective controls that enable risk to be assessed and managed
- Creating a single visible mental health and community leadership for the populations the Trusts serve as well as in place-based partnerships
- Providing strategic leadership across mental health and community health provider collaborative arrangements, particularly in the North Central London ICS
- Ensuring the Trusts strategies supports delivery of the strategic objectives of the ICS in which they are members
People and Culture
In the role of shaping organisational culture and setting the right tone at the top, the Joint Chair is responsible for:
- Providing visible ethical, compassionate, and inclusive leadership in developing a healthy, open and transparent people participation and co-production culture for the organisations where all staff have equality of opportunity to progress, the freedom to speak up and debate is encouraged
- Setting the tone and style of Boards and Council discussions to facilitate constructive and sensitive debate and effective decision-making enabling contributions from all
- Leading the work of the Boards and Council in a positive and collaborative fashion, and maintaining appropriate links with individual Directors and Governors
- Ensuring the Boards reflect and promoting equality, diversity and inclusion for the Trusts’ service users, staff, and other stakeholders
- Promoting the highest standards of ethics, integrity, probity, and corporate governance, leading by example, to achieve a culture of openness and transparency
- Developing constructive, open and effective relationships with all Board Directors particularly the Chief Executive, providing support, guidance and advice while respecting executive responsibility
Capacity and Capability
In the role of developing the Boards’ capacity and capability, the Joint Chair is responsible for:
- Ensuring both Boards have the right balance and range of skills, knowledge and perspectives, and the confidence to challenge on all aspects of clinical and organisational planning
- Considering succession planning for the Boards including attracting and developing future talent
- Ensuring there are systems and procedures for inducting new Board members and regularly evaluating the performance and effectiveness of both Boards and their committees
- Acting on the results of these evaluations and supporting personal development planning, as well as taking account of their own development needs
- Ensuring that Directors and Governors continually update their skills, knowledge, and familiarity with the Trusts to fulfil their role both on the Boards/Councils and associated committees
- Developing Boards that are genuinely connected to and assured about staff and patient experience, quality improvement and people participation as demonstrated by appropriate feedback and other measures
Partnerships and Communications
In the role as an ambassador for both Trusts within their local communities and with partners and stakeholders at local, regional, and national levels, the Joint Chair is responsible for:
- Acting in and promoting the common interests of both Trusts, representing the organisations externally, developing and facilitating strong partnerships and promoting collaborative whole system working that focuses on integrated high-quality services and outcomes that meet the population’s healthcare needs, through engagement with:
– Patients, service users, carers, members, and the public
– All staff
– Key partners across public, private, and voluntary sectors
– Regulators
– Other Chairs in the system and the wider NHS provider Chair community including where appropriate through integrating with other care providers, and identifying, managing, and sharing risks
- Supporting and working closely with the leadership at the ICS within which both Trusts operate to contribute to, advocate for and deliver against the wider ICS strategic agenda to improve health, life expectancy, quality and productivity of care as well as reduce inequalities in access, quality, and outcomes
- Ensuring effective communication with stakeholders creates debate encompassing diverse views and giving sufficient time and consideration to complex, contentious or sensitive issues
- Ensuring effective communication and constructive dialogue, and promoting harmonious relations with and between the Boards and the Council
- Helping to ensure effective collaboration, not only between the Trusts and unitary Boards, but just as importantly, with places and boroughs across all the localities we serve
- Developing and extensively communicating a single shared narrative to the public and internally within both organisations, alongside other members of the Board
- Supporting and enhancing both Trusts’ role as a system leader and to assist in developing and embedding their global profiles
Guardian
In the role as governance lead for both Boards and the Council, the Joint Chair is responsible for:
- Ensuring both Boards and Council operate effectively and function within the legal and regulatory framework, understanding their own accountability and compliance with their approved procedures
- Being aware of and understanding relevant, regulatory, and central government policies as well as local issues
- Leading on continual development of governance, skills, knowledge, and familiarity within both Trusts as well as the health and social care system, to enable the Boards and Council to carry out their roles effectively. Providing due consideration of governance and risk management within provider collaboratives
- Working to, and encouraging within both organisations, the highest standards of probity, integrity, and governance, and ensuring that the internal governance arrangements support the Trust strategy and direction, as well as conform with best practice and statutory requirements
- Setting the agendas with a focus on collective and integrated working relevant to the Trusts’ current operating environment and taking full account of the important strategic issues and key risks the Trusts face
- Ensuring the Boards and Councils collectively and individually apply sufficient challenge in meeting agreed objectives and statutory responsibilities
- Ensuring that Directors and Governors receive accurate, high quality, timely and clear information that is appropriate for their respective duties and that there is good flow of information between the Boards, committees, and the Council
- With the assistance of the relevant Joint Trust Secretary, ensuring that the Boards and Council have an effective corporate governance framework with an annual cycle of business and with committees that are properly constituted and effective
- Ensuring that Fit & Proper Persons processes are in place for all Board members
Catalyst for Change
In the role as a catalyst for change, the Joint Chair is responsible for:
- Ensuring the Boards maintain an unrelenting focus on promoting and embedding quality improvement, clinical leadership, people participation and coproduction, and diversity and inclusion
- Promoting a culture of innovation directed by population health needs and learning by being outward-looking and encouraging better use of data and technology
- Ensuring all Board members are well briefed on the external context, e.g. policy, integration, partnerships, social trends, and this is reflected in Board (and Council) debate
- Ensuring performance is accurately measured including against constitutional and Care Quality Commission ‘well-led’ standards
- Ensuring performance on equality, diversity and inclusion for all patients, service users and staff is measured and progressed at pace
This role description highlights the main areas of responsibility for the role of the Joint Chair and is not exhaustive. There will be other responsibilities and requirements that will be commensurate to this role.
Person Specification
| Knowledge, Skills & Interests |
A passion for promoting well-being and improving the integration of mental and physical health for a holistic service approach within our local communities and beyond A broad understanding of the political context in which the NHS and wider health and social care provision operate Clear understanding and acceptance of the legal duties, liabilities, and responsibilities of Board directors; accustomed to a high level of accountability and holding others to account Excellent interpersonal and communication skills; able to foster a cohesive, unitary Board to meet common goals Politically astute Excellent analytical skills |
| Experience & Competencies |
Demonstrable track-record of leadership gained at Board level within a major, people-focused organisation of comparable complexity, ideally within the NHS A track record of providing strategic leadership to organisations undergoing major programmes of change (including capital development), and of overseeing improved organisational performance and quality outcomes throughout such programmes of activity Prior experience in a non-executive role, ideally having held a Chair role previously A demonstrably collaborative and collective approach to leadership and behaviours which engender high levels of respect from others A track record of shaping and promoting a compelling corporate vision, organisational objectives, and long-term strategy A demonstrable track record of championing diversity and inclusion and of embedding a commitment to diversity and inclusion within strategic and operational activities |
| Personal Qualities, Values & Behaviours |
Aligned to the core values of the Trust and demonstrates a strong commitment to NHS values and the Nolan Principles Transparent, robust, and independent approach to decision-making Sufficient time, energy and commitment to fulfil the role and maintain an effective degree of independence and objectivity throughout the tenure |
As Chair, you must champion the standards of public life – by upholding the highest standards of conduct and displaying the principles of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership.
As a future NHS leader, the successful candidate will be able to demonstrate the range of behaviours required to contribute effectively in this board level role. These are outlined in the NHS Leadership Academy’s Healthcare Leadership Model.
Applicants should live in North London or have strong connections with the area and the demographics served by the Trusts.
- The Joint Chair will require an average of 3 days per week, however, the time commitment may vary, and a flexible approach should be taken
- The remuneration payable for the Joint Chair role is circa £55,000
Should you wish to discuss the role in strict confidence, please contact our advising consultant at Anderson Quigley: Helene Usherwood on helene@andersonquigley.com or +44(0)7719 322 669.
