Leaders from local health and care organisations in our region are stepping up to lead health and care services in Barnsley, Bassetlaw, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield into the future.

Health and care services are changing and later this year, the partnership known as Health and Care Working Together in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw, will formally launch as an Integrated Care System (ICS) – taking shared responsibility for the way health and care services are run and delivered to the 1.5 million people in our region.

Making the formal announcement of the leaders in charge of improving health and care services, Sir Andrew Cash, Chief Executive for the South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw ICS, said:

“It is an exciting time for us in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw – leaders of health and care services have come together to break down barriers between services, look at what we do well, what could be better and how we can build on this to ensure that we are delivering the best possible and highest quality care for all patients and people living in our region. We have been named as one of the first areas in the country to become an Integrated Care System and with this comes more local ownership over our local services so we can ensure we are providing the services that our population really need and deserve.

“It is also an opportunity to develop services for the future – developing our staff, opening up career opportunities to the next generation and improving the overall wellbeing as well as health of our citizens. To enable us to do this, we need the best team in place to lead these advancements and I am delighted that we have so many strong, talented and able leaders in our system who have stepped up to lead the health and care services of the future.

Whilst continuing in their current, substantive roles, the following leaders have been announced in part time roles within the ICS:

  • Lesley Smith, Chief Officer of NHS Barnsley CCG will be the Deputy System Leader as well as taking responsibility for Strategy, Planning and Transformation Delivery
  • Richard Jenkins, Chief Executive of Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust will take responsibility for NHS Provider Development
  • Richard Parker, Chief Executive of Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will take responsibility for Integrated Assurance and Improvement (for NHS Providers)
  • Maddy Ruff, Chief Officer of NHS Sheffield CCG will take responsibility for Population Health and Primary Care
  • Chris Edwards, Chief Officer of NHS Rotherham CCG will take responsibility for Estates and Capital
  • Idris Griffiths, Chief Officer for NHS Bassetlaw CCG will take responsibility for Integrated Assurance and Improvement (for NHS Commissioners)
  • Kevan Taylor, Chief Executive of Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust will take responsibility for Workforce

He continued: “Involving chief executives and chief officers and very senior and experienced leaders from across our system is vital to our success. Together with the chief executives and officers who are supporting the 15 ICS workstreams, we will continue to engage with and involve our local authorities in the work on population health, improving education, employment and housing.”

The partnership is not a statutory organisation and all chiefs will continue to lead and be accountable for their respective organisations while being in the above roles from September 2018 – when the partnership will formally launch.

People who have been working on the ICS for some time are also being aligned during the next stage and Professor Des Breen has been named as Medical Director, Jeremy Cook as Director of Finance and Will Cleary-Gray as Chief Operating Officer.

Integrated Care Systems aim to improve health and care by:

  • supporting the coordination of services, with a particular focus on those at risk of developing acute illness and being hospitalised
  • providing more care in a community- and home-based setting, including in partnership with council social care, and the voluntary and community sector
  • ensuring a greater focus on population health and preventing ill health
  • allowing systems to take collective responsibility for how they best use resources to improve health results and quality of care, including through agreed cross-system spending totals

Keep up to date on work taking place in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw to improve health and care services by subscribing here.