New NHS Trust for Hounslow and Richmond

Approval for New Community Healthcare Trust

HRCH logoHounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare (HRCH) has been given the green light by the Department of Health to move towards NHS trust status.

Government policy requires all community health services to move out of their current management under primary care trusts by April 2011. The approval from the Department of Health means HRCH will become a new NHS trust from 1 April 2011.

Richard Tyler, managing director of HRCH, said NHS trust status is all about improving community healthcare. “This is an important landmark in securing local community health services for local people. We will have more freedom to be flexible to local needs and therefore more responsive to what our patients and local community tell us they want and need.”

Chairman Stephen Swords said, “I would like to pay tribute to our staff for their dedication and commitment and I would also like to thank our GPs, LINKs, local boroughs and the communities of Hounslow and Richmond.  The local support of our plans to become independent was vital throughout this process.   We look forward to working even more closely with these groups to improve the health and wellbeing of our local population.”

Achieving NHS trust status will be the first milestone on the journey to becoming a community foundation trust, which will bring the organisation even greater freedoms.

Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare is the NHS organisation providing the majority of community health services in the London boroughs of Hounslow and Richmond-upon-Thames, employing over 1000 staff, including district nurses, health visitors, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, podiatrists and dietitians. Services are funded mainly by NHS Hounslow and NHS Richmond, the local primary care trusts. Services are provided in people’s own homes, health centres and other community settings including Teddington Memorial Hospital. www.hrch.nhs.uk

 

January 12, 2011