Join our Board

Welcome

Dear Candidate 

Thank you for your interest in East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) and these fabulous opportunities to join our Board.  Two of our Non-Executive Directors are reaching the end of their terms of office so we are seeking two new Non-Executive Directors. I 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 merger of Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust and The Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust.  The merger has been successful and 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 5 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 Trust 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 3 years on important capital developments.   Later this autumn we will be opening 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 will open this September and will bring much needed additional capacity at the front door of the hospital.  

The Urgent Treatment Centre will offer 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. A £9.1million specialist keyhole surgery hub, which will include three state-of-the-art operating theatres, a recovery area and a post-operative care unit at Ipswich Hospital, will open at the end of July 2024.  

We 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 & 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.    

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. 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. 

As a key partner in the Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care System, we continue to play a role in the system-wide programme to improve our population’s health as a key area of focus in our transformation.  

This Recruitment 

Our Board has developed as a highly collaborative, effective, and cohesive unit and we continue to bring broader and more diverse voices to the team.  At this challenging time in our sector, we are seeking to appoint two Non-Executive Directors to our Board.   

For one of the roles we are seeking an individual who brings astute financial leadership and the ability to quickly interpret complex performance metrics.  Previous NHS experience is not essential, although you will have a recognised professional qualification; you will demonstrate the ability to translate your experience to add value in our context at a time of intense resourcing pressures and also be able to chair our Audit & Risk Committee.  For the second role we are seeking an experienced clinical leader with board level or equivalent experience who will seek assurance of our continued improvement in our quality, safety, clinical outcomes and patient experience.   

As an Associate Non-Executive Director you will participate in all aspects of the workings of our Board and I am particularly keen to encourage applications from people who bring different lived experience to our Board and who provide a fresh perspective to our strategic decision making; ensuring that our Board represents the communities we serve and the staff who serve them. We welcome applications from individuals looking to make the step into a Non-Executive Director role. We would be interested in those who have an understanding of our thriving community and voluntary sector and/or those who have experience in digital transformation, or with experience of project management of large and complex programmes, but this is not essential.   

For all of these roles we are keen to hear from values-driven leaders; who are committed to advancing equality, diversity, and inclusion. These are great opportunities to influence transformation across our organisation and system and proudly improve services for our communities. You should bring a passion for our work, a strong understanding of good governance, and positive energy to challenge and support our Board and help us to continue our journey of improvement and drive to reduce health inequalities for our population.  

If you are interested in one of these exciting opportunities, then I 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, Jim Canning or Eleanor Lawrence at GatenbySanderson on XXXX  

I look forward to meeting you during the process. 

Helen Taylor, Chair