Chief People Officer appointed for NGH and KGH

Chief People Officer, Mark Smith

The Trust Boards at both Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust and Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust are pleased to announce that they have agreed to appoint a Chief People Officer across both organisations. The appointment will initially be on a secondment basis for nine months, from 1 September 2019.  

Mark Smith, the current Director of HR and OD at Kettering General Hospital NHS FT will be seconded into the role.

Sonia Swart, CEO of NGH said: ‘I am very pleased that, by working closely with colleagues at KGH, we are able to announce our agreed plans regarding the new Chief People Officer for both hospitals.  I am pleased to welcome Mark into TeamNGH and look forward to working with him to take forward our new People Strategy, which is currently being developed with our staff.   How we support everyone at TeamNGH so they can continue to provide the best possible care is of key importance to me.  I am sure both our organisations can learn from one another and Mark joining us will support us in working more collaboratively with our colleagues at KGH.’

Simon Weldon, CEO of KGH stated: ‘This appointment further supports our belief that we need to work together if we are to be able to deliver the services needed by the communities we serve, and ensure our staff are supported to deliver the care our patients need.  We know we need to work together and what better place to start than in reviewing how our Human Resources and OD services support our staff to deliver high quality care across the county.’

Alan Burns, Chairman of both NGH and KGH added ‘I am excited that we were able to agree to create the Chief People Officer role. Today’s agreement reflects that between NGH and KGH we realise the national as well as our own local NHS workforce challenges.  We want both our organisations to be ready and prepared to respond to these challenges, taking the learning for both organisations into one another.’  

Both hospitals provide acute hospital services in Northamptonshire and strongly believe that collaboration will enable them to achieve more for patients and service users by utilising the strength of their combined workforce, both current and future.

The ability to consider staffing needs for all services provided by both hospitals offers an exciting opportunity for both organisations to more effectively recruit and retain staff – especially highly skilled staff – in what is an extremely competitive NHS jobs market.  This ambition is supported by the recently published interim NHS People Plan which acknowledges that delivering on a joint people agenda will be fundamental to delivering the NHS Long Term Plan and it is felt this joint appointment will support both Trusts in achieving this objective.