Welcome from Steve Williamson, Chief Executive

Dear Colleague,

Thank you for your interest in the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT).

At RCHT, our vision is Outstanding Care for One + All. In seeking to deliver a brilliant experience, patient safety is our first priority, providing safe, high-quality care to our patients which meets their individual needs and expectations and values theirs and their relative’s time.

Our 2023 to 2032 strategy, Outstanding Care for One + All, focuses on three objectives: Supported and Valued People, Safe High Quality Care and Journey of Improvement. We want to change, transform, and modernise, refocusing our efforts on delivering the right services, in the right locations, with the right workforce, to a Outstanding standard. Ultimately, we want to ensure we are one of the safest hospitals to receive care.

Meeting the needs of our local population requires all healthcare organisations to work together, and RCHT has progressed in partnership with others and this person will play a critical leadership role across the System. This includes primary care providers, social services, other hospitals, and healthcare providers, but ultimately it has been focused on listening to the patients themselves. By working across organisations to take a “population view”, we can achieve brilliant outcomes both for individual patients and for the population as a whole. This will inevitably mean that our staff may need to work different, may require new skills to meet future challenges and we need to ensure they have every opportunity to succeed through support, development, and training.

As the main provider of acute and specialist care services for the people of Cornwall, we recognise the importance of ensuring that our operations run as smoothly and effectively as possible. With the development of ICSs our staff have had to work in new and different ways, in order to transform our services and help make our strategic goals a success. We recognise that strong leadership is important across the organisation, and the Chief Medical Officer will be crucial in ensuring that we are able to continue to innovate and maximise the impact we have for our communities.

RCHT has formed a provider collaborative with Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CFT) to improve the sustainability of hospital and healthcare in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. As part of this provider collaborative, we have agreed the principles of a ‘One workforce’ approach to facilitate NHS recruitment and retention, support the movement of staff between both organisations, align terms and conditions of employment, and facilitate service transformation across NHS Providers to enable care to be delivered in the most effective and sustainable way. We have also developed an acute provider collaborative with Acute Hospital providers across Devon and Cornwall to support the sustainability of Acute Hospital services across the Devon and Cornwall Peninsula.

Alongside our provider collaborative arrangements, we are working very closely with Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly Health and Care partners as part of the the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Integrated Care Board (ICB). This has provided opportunities for our supporting services and clinical services to work more closely together, building on some of the successes we already have with IT services and Occupational Health services.

We continue on an exciting and challenging agenda ahead, one that is focused on delivering exceptional services to a diverse and dispersed population. We know that the ambitions we have for the Trust can only be realised if we work with our partners across the region to shape and develop the healthcare services of the future for our communities.

Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly is made up of breath taking landscapes, vibrant communities, and has an amazing quality of life. We have excellent Universities, well regarded State and private schools, friendly communities, and a vibrant cultural environment across an amazing part of our country. We have amazing people and teams across Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, and across our wider health and care partners, and a shared vision of partnership working to significantly improve health and care in our region. We opened our new Cornwall Cancer Centre in 2023, and over the coming years we will progress our £300m new Womens and Childrens Hospital, deliver elective surgery centre at Bodmin, significantly invest in our hospitals at West Cornwall and Hayle to support more care close to home, and to realise our vision for a University Teaching Hospital in Cornwall as we grow and further develop our teaching and research capabilities.

This is exceptional Executive leadership opportunity for colleagues who share our values. I have had the privilege of being Chief Executive of our amazing Trust 3 years, and I very much look forward to meeting candidates who have the vision, passion and values to support and lead our transformation journey.

I look forward to receiving your application.

Steve Williamson, Chief Executive