Northamptonshire welcomes NHS strategy chief
NHS England's national Chief Strategy Officer Chris Hopson has paid a visit to Northamptonshire to learn more about innovation and collaboration in our integrated care system.
Colleagues welcomed Chris to the county on Friday 19 January, where he first visited Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust's (NHFT) Highfield Clinical Care Centre to see some of our innovative mental health services – including the Mental Health Number telephone service (run by Mind and NHFT), the Crisis Response Unit vehicle launched in 2023, and the Acute Liaison Mental Health Service.
Next on the agenda was a tour of Northampton General Hospital (NGH), where he was shown the state-of-the-art surgical robot, which is being used to support life-saving cancer surgery, and the one-stop gynaecology clinic. He was also given the lowdown on an award-winning sustainability project to reduce the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) at the hospital.
From there it was off to the Hope Centre in Northampton to see work to address health inequalities in action, with a public health team from West Northamptonshire Council delivering health checks and vaccinations for homeless people and rough sleepers.
Finally Chris then visited the Turn Furlong Recovering Independence Bed Unit, where clinical staff from NHFT and social care staff from WNC provide collaborative short-term care to support people in their return home after a hospital stay.
Eileen Doyle, Chief Operating Officer for NHS Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board, said: "We were delighted to welcome Chris to Northamptonshire. It was fantastic to have the opportunity to showcase some of the great work we are doing here to provide better care for people who live and work in our county and Chris spoke really positively about the effectiveness of our integrated working."