Liberating time: when less governance is better governance – NHS NED meeting with Professor Eileen Fairhurst – 17 February 2023

As part of its mission to promote good governance, GGI has been hosting facilitated virtual meetings to give NHS non-executive directors an opportunity to share their concerns, challenges and ideas as we rethink the future of health and social care.

The goal is to collectively think about the role NEDs play as part of the controlling mind of their organisations, to discuss immediate safeguarding issues and to ensure we all learn from this experience to assure better outcomes for citizens in the future. If you would like to join this meeting, please email events@good-governance.org.uk.

ABOUT

Chair: Prof. Andrew Corbett-Nolan, Chief Executive, Good Governance Institute

In conversation with Professor Eileen Fairhurst, Chair, Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust... 'Liberating time: when less governance is better governance'

Join us virtually to hear from Professor Fairhurst on how to make governance leaner and more effective and purposeful. The session will focus on practical ways NEDs can support their boards to:

• reduce ineffective time in meetings
• develop clearer governance better aligned to trust strategy and executive responsibilities
• identify issues and ensure they rise up to the board.

About Professor Eileen Fairhurst

Eileen Fairhurst was appointed to East Lancashire Hospitals Trust in February, 2014. She is a highly experienced Chairman and has chaired a number of large, complex public and third sector organisations, including Acute, Specialised Mental Health and Primary Care Trusts. Within six months of being appointed, she led the Trust out of Special Measures and the Trust now has a CQC rating of ‘Good’ with some ‘Outstanding’ features. She established Salford PCT in 2001 which became one of the highest performing PCTs in the country. Subsequently, she was Chairman of NHS Greater Manchester, the largest PCT cluster in England.

She has a national profile for partnership working and the governance of organisations. Her partnership working in health has involved regeneration of localities. Her expertise in the practice of regeneration is mirrored in her academic profile with a number of publications and conference presentations. Her current partnership working in the Lancashire and Cumbria ICS includes membership of the Health Sector Board of the Lancashire Local Enterprise Partnership which is feeding in to the development of the forthcoming Greater Lancashire Strategy and of the Lancashire and Cumbria Health Equity Commission, Chaired by Professor Michael Marmot.

Eileen has always ensured that perspectives of patients and communities contribute to service developments. She has championed a number of whole systems innovative service re-design programmes, including mental health, children’s and women’s health, urgent care and the Greater Manchester Healthier Together programme.

Over the years she has been a regular contributor to development programmes for NEDs and Aspirant Executive Directors and Chairs and to national conferences on Governance and leadership.

A former Professor in Public Health at the University of Salford, she has an international research profile for developing new domains of study in the sociology of aging and sociology of health and illness. She has had academic exchanges with universities in Canada (University of Edmonton and Simon Fraser University) and continental Europe (Universities of Bremen, Helsinki, Murcia and Perugia where she contributed to General Practice CPD). She is a Founding Fellow of the British Society of Gerontology.

Her contributions to both academic research and the NHS have been acknowledged with a number of academic honours; Visiting Scholar at the Social Science Centre at the national University of Ireland Galway, an Honorary DSc from the University of Salford and an Honorary Doctorate from UCLan. Currently she is a Visiting Professor at the University of Chester.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

This meeting is by invitation only and is open to all NHS non-executive directors, chairs and associate non-executive directors of NHS providers. Others may attend by special invitation. For further details, comments, questions and suggestions please contact: events@good-governance.org.uk.

Next time – save the date

The next session will be held on Friday 17 March. It will be an open discussion of challenges and opportunities, and a chance to collaboratively plan the focus of events for the rest of 2023.