News / Monitor and TDA to work more closely under shared chief executive

The Department of Health said the bodies would work together more closely, although the TDA would continue to be responsible for NHS trusts, supporting them in the process to gain foundation status or secure another sustainable organisational form.

The Department said: ‘All hospitals need access to the same kinds of support and should be subject to the same kinds of intervention if their performance isn’t delivering the level of care that patients have a right to expect.’

Closer working between the two organisations would achieve best value for money, avoid wastage and deliver efficiencies.

The current chief executives – David Bennett at Monitor and the TDA’s Bob Alexander – will put in motion the first steps to closer working immediately, together with an open process to recruit the new chief executive. The Department said the appointment will be made by the end of the summer. Mr Bennett will remain in place to steer the transition for Monitor but he has indicated that he will step down in due course.

Mr Alexander said: ‘Throughout this next period, the support and development that we provide – and that NHS trusts have told us is
so valuable – will not change. Our focus remains on the most important issue of all: maintaining and improving patient care.

‘We will support this transition fully over the next period. We look forward to working more closely with colleagues across the health system to share what we have found to have worked well with NHS trusts.’

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said that the move made sense because it would reduce duplication, create a streamlined foundation trust authorisation process and introduce a degree of certainty over the ongoing role of the TDA.

However, there was a significant amount of detail to be hammered out, he added.
This included governance processes to ensure clarity on which legislative powers are being used, that the relevant powers are not being exceeded, and how conflicts of interest between the two organisations will be managed and avoided.