Join our Board

Welcome

Dear Candidate

Thank you for your interest in East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) and this exceptional opportunity to lead our Board as our next Chair.  We are searching for a special individual to succeed the outstanding Helen Taylor in that demanding but immensely fulfilling role.

Whilst we are proud of what ESNEFT delivers for our patients and community, we are under no illusions of the challenges which we and the rest of the NHS and care system across the country have before us. Our OAK values, of Optimism, Appreciation and Kindness, are the touchstone of how we treat each other and all those we serve and have contact with.  Those people all deserve the best and that includes the best leaders we can find.

We hope that you enjoy finding out more about our Trust, our values, ambitions, and how your professional and personal experience could offer a fresh perspective to the decision making of our Board.

Our Trust

We are by any measure a large and complex organisation, formed on 1 July 2018 through the successful merger of Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust and The Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust.  We deliver care from two main acute hospital sites in Colchester and Ipswich, six community hospitals and in patients’ own homes. We provide a range of specialised services and are developing centres of excellence such as robotic surgery.  Community health services operate in Aldeburgh, Clacton, Halstead, Harwich and Felixstowe community hospitals, as well as Bluebird Lodge near Ipswich. We have an annual income of c£1.b and over 12,000 dedicated staff.

Our ambition is to “provide the best care and experience, and to increase equality in health outcomes”. Thanks to all our staff we have delivered most of the goals of our initial five year strategy and the Board have now agreed a clinical strategy covering the period to 2029.  ESNEFT is an ambitious Trust and we actively use our philosophy of “Time Matters” to provide the overarching framework for our quality improvement work. Digital transformation is key to our strategy, improving patient safety and quality and increasing productivity.  We are currently working to introduce Epic, our new Electronic Patient Record, in October 2025 through a clinically led transformation programme.  We have consistently outperformed national and regional benchmarks for access to services and we have demonstrated our strength as an integrated Trust and a system partner, continuing to innovate in the delivery of high quality, sustainable and increasingly integrated care.

We have invested over £300 million in the last three years on important capital developments.   2024 sees the opening of the Dame Clare Marx Building at Colchester Hospital, our new elective orthopaedic centre for people in Essex and Suffolk.  The new centre will bring much quicker treatment and recovery for patients and will be one of the biggest of its kind in Europe. More than 10,000 patients a year will be treated which will significantly reduce waiting times for people needing elective orthopaedic surgery. Our new £25.7 million Urgent and Emergency Care Centre at Ipswich Hospital is now open, bringing much needed additional capacity at the front door of the hospital along with a £9.1million specialist keyhole surgery hub, of three state-of-the-art operating theatres, a recovery area and a post-operative care unit.

The Urgent Treatment Centre offers treatment for a range of urgent but not life-threatening conditions, freeing up the emergency department to focus on providing care for the most critically ill and seriously injured patients. It will also pave the way for a new musculoskeletal department, bringing together rheumatology, spinal services and trauma and orthopaedics all under one roof – putting all our specialists in one place and providing a better environment for patients and staff.

We see ourselves as a community asset and are proud to be an anchor institution, rooted in and connected to the communities we serve.  Our communities include some experiencing the greatest health inequalities in the country.  Using our size and scale we can positively contribute in many ways beyond providing health care; through our relationships with our local partners including universities and colleges, local authorities, other NHS organisations and voluntary and community sector partners. Our anchor programme includes widening access to quality work, purchasing for social benefit, using buildings and spaces to support communities, reducing our environmental impact and working closely with communities and local partners.  We have opened a new Community Diagnostic Centre in Clacton and have a Trust wide health inequalities programme.

In this vein we work as a key partner in the Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care System.  Through provider collaboration and a range of other initiatives we continue to be committed to playing a role in the system-wide programme to improve our population’s health as a key area of focus in our transformation.

Our community services play a vital role in preventing admission and enabling discharge from hospital.  We have a virtual ward programme using technology to allow people to be supported in their own homes.  We serve almost a million people living across a wide geographical area and are one of the biggest employers in East Anglia recognising the important part we play in the health and wellbeing of our populations. Our research and Making Time Matters programmes are growing at an impressive rate across a broad front.

We are the first Trust in the country to offer a new route to become a qualified doctor through a five-year apprenticeship. Working in close partnership with Anglia Ruskin School of Medicine, the Medical Doctor Degree Apprenticeship offers an alternative path into medicine for people who might not have otherwise gone to medical school.

Any success is down to the efforts of all our staff and volunteers, but through Helen Taylor and Nick Hulme’s leadership our Board has developed as a highly collaborative, effective, and cohesive unit.  This is, however, an incredibly challenging time for the NHS and our Trust is not immune to this. We are continuing to work on recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic with plans around both elective and cancer care to reduce the long waits, whilst dealing with the changing profile of activity within urgent and emergency services.

As is reflected nationally, we have continued to see an increase in the number of people referred to hospital on a cancer pathway. Our performance against the national access standards like many other Trusts is challenging but we have made significant progress in the last 12 months whilst retaining financial control.  We focus on the quality and safety of our services as well as ensuring that we improve patient experience and inequalities. Our people are a key priority for us, particularly recruitment and retention, staff wellbeing, improving engagement and the development of our future leaders.

The role

As Helen comes to her maximum term of office, we are seeking to appoint a new Chair to lead our Board of Directors and Council of Governors, to build on our current success and face the multiple challenges before us.  We need an exceptional individual who is used to leading at Board level in large and complex organisations and who has, or is willing to develop, a deep understanding of the NHS and the wider health and social care sector.

You will need a strong track record of building relationships with a range of stakeholders across both organisations and communities and have a reputation for your ambassadorial and diplomatic approach.  This is not a role for the faint hearted.  It is a significant commitment requiring a range of attributes including resilience and agility in the face of public scrutiny.

Our future must be shaped around our people and supported by inclusive leadership and robust governance.  It is imperative that we seek out those leaders who embody our values and commit wholeheartedly to supporting our staff to achieve our priorities. We want someone who will be deeply committed to improving patient outcomes, who is empathetic and kind, and who will listen to and hear our staff and communities.

We are keen to hear from values-driven leaders who are committed to advancing equality, diversity, and inclusion. You should bring a passion to challenge, guide and champion our work, significant Board level leadership experience, a strong understanding of good governance, and positive energy to lead our Board of Directors and Council of Governors to help us to continue our journey of improvement and drive to reduce health inequalities for our population.

If you believe you may be the exceptional individual we seek, then we encourage you to read further on this site and contact our retained consultants at GatenbySanderson in the first instance for a confidential discussion; Julia St Clare at GatenbySanderson on 07807 631564.

We look forward to meeting you during the process.