Hospital trust

Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of 450,000 people from a catchment area covering most of West Sussex. The Trust was created on 1st April 2009 through the merger of St. Richard’s Hospital, Chichester, Southlands Hospital, in Shoreham-by-Sea and Worthing Hospital.

Every year, the Trust’s 6,000 staff:

• Treat 118,000 inpatients and day cases
• See 476,000 outpatients
• Treat 126,000 people in the two Accident and Emergency departments
• Deliver 5,000 babies
• Receive around one million blood samples
• Dispense 740,000 medicines
• Take 310,000 imaging exams (x-rays/scans)

About the hospital

St Richard’s Hospital has 430 beds and provides a full range of general acute services including, maternity, outpatients, A&E and intensive care. It also has a purpose built NHS Treatment Centre on site which offers safe, fast, pre-booked day and short stay surgery and diagnostic procedures.

The area served by the hospital is around 400 sq miles. It consists of the coastal areas of Littlehampton, Bognor, Selsey and Chichester Harbour, together with the city of Chichester and the South Downs market towns of Midhurst, Billingshurst, Pulborough, Arundel and Petworth. There is also a significant number of patients from East Hampshire.

History

The original building at St Richard’s Hospital was built in 1938-9 by West Sussex County Council. It had 194 beds for elderly and infirm people, but at the beginning of the war in 1939, the Government declared it an Emergency Medical Service General Hospital. By 1940, 10 hutted wards were added, taking the number of beds to 400.

In the post-war period, the Postgraduate Medical Education Centre (CMEC) opened on the hospital site in 1966 and in 1970 new accident and emergency, outpatient, x-ray and maternity departments were opened, and two additional operating theatres added.

Donald Wilson House, the hospital’s neurological rehabilitation unit, opened in 1975 and two years later the hospital added its intensive care unit and coronary care unit.

In 1994, St Richard’s Hospital attained NHS Trust status and became Royal West Sussex NHS Trust. The hospital then expanded quickly, with 1996 a significant year as the hospital unveiled its larger new building, containing wards, physiotherapy and theatres. The Trust was also awarded a Charter Mark for excellence in public service that year, which was an outstanding achievement, while the hospital’s first intrauterine insemination (IUI) triplets were also born.

Since then, the Trust has been proud to receive many awards, such as the UNICEF Global Baby Friendly Award in 1999 and the Top District General Hospital in the Sunday Times Good Hospital Guide in 2000. It has also been named as one of the CHKS Top 40 Hospitals every year since 2001.

In 2004, a successful fundraising appeal raised £1 million for a new MRI scanner and the following year the hospital scanned its 1,000th person using the machine. Also in 2005, the Trust proudly unveiled the Chichester Treatment Centre for short stay surgical procedures.

The maternity unit received praise in 2008, when it was named as one of the best performing in the country. In the same year, the hospital opened a dedicated children’s area in A&E and received an excellent rating for environment, food, privacy and dignity from the National Patient Safety Agency. The Bariatric Service for obese patients also celebrated winning a NHS South East Coast Best of Health award in the category of ‘dignity in care’.

2008 also saw Donald Wilson House replaced with a modern, environmentally-friendly building and construction get under way on the new Cancer Day Unit, known as the Fernhurst Centre. This new building was made possible thanks to a successful fundraising campaign which raised more than £3.5 million.

In October 2008, the Trust began plans for its merger with Worthing and Southlands Hospitals NHS Trust. The merger took place on 1 April 2009 and the three hospitals – St Richard’s, Worthing and Southlands, in Shoreham-by-Sea, joined together to become Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust.

Trust Board members:

Mike Viggers, Interim Chairman
Mike Viggers was appointed Interim Chairman of the Trust on 16 May 2011 following the resignation of the previous Chairman, Hywel Evans, for health and family reasons. Mike joined the Board on leave of absence from Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, where he is Deputy Chairman and Senior Independent Director. He brings to the Trust extensive experience as a Senior Director for blue chip companies in the private sector, including a period as Operations Director for Parker Pen. He will act as Interim Chairman until the Appointments Commission announces a permanent successor to Hywel Evans

Executive Directors

Marianne Griffiths, Chief Executive
Marianne is Western Sussex Hospitals’ first chief executive, and was previously Interim Chief Executive of the Royal West Sussex NHS Trust during the final months before merger. She joined the hospitals from NHS South East Coast, where she was Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Commissioning and Delivery, prior to which she was Chief Executive at Kent and Medway Strategic Health Authority. Her many roles in the NHS have also included a joint appointment in West Sussex as Head of Commissioning Social Services and Director of Strategic Development for the Health Authority.

Dr Phillip Barnes, Medical Director
Dr Barnes is a Consultant Neurologist and has 10 years experience in senior clinical management roles. He joined the Trust in September 2009 having previously worked at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, in London.

Jane Farrell, Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer
Jane has 28 years experience in the NHS and prior to the creation of WSHT had been Director of Operations / Deputy Chief Executive of Royal West Sussex NHS Trust since joining in July 2008. Originally training as a nurse, she specialised in paediatrics and held several senior professional roles before moving full-time into general management. Her extensive management experience includes several senior roles across London, including at Great Ormond Street, St Mary’s, and prior to moving to Sussex, as Director of Operations at Ealing Hospital NHS Trust.

Spencer Prosser, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Finance
Spencer has held posts in several local NHS organisations, in both acute hospital and community/mental health settings. He was previously Director of Finance at Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, West Sussex Health and Social Care NHS Trust, East Sussex County Healthcare NHS Trust and Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Trust.Spencer is a qualified accountant (IPFA) with a BA (Hons) in Economics.

Cathy Stone, Director of Nursing and Patient Safety
Cathy was Director of Nursing at Hastings and Rother NHS Trust for six years and Director of Nursing at Worthing and Southlands from January 2008 prior to her appointment as Director of Nursing and Patient Safety at Western Sussex Hospitals. She is a registered nurse and midwife with a special interest in neonatology, was part of the national steering group which developed the Advanced Neonatal Nurse Practitioner role (ANNP) and one of the first ANNP’s to be appointed in the county. In support of her clinical background, Cathy has an MSc in Healthcare Management and has previously held Senior General Manager positions in other Trusts.

Denise Farmer, Director of Organisational Development and Leadership
Denise joined Royal West Sussex NHS Trust in February 2008 as Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development and was appointed to her current post on the merger with Worthing and Southlands. She originally hails from Liverpool and has worked in the public sector for her entire career, most recently at Hampshire Primary Care Trust (PCT), where she was involved in major change programmes. At South Central Strategic Health Authority she led the recruitment process for PCT Chief Executives and Directors to the new PCTs.

Non Executive Directors

Tony Clark, Deputy Chairman
Tony was a member of the old Royal West Sussex Board from 2006, is a magistrate sitting on the Sussex Western Bench, and also a business adviser in the local area with Young Enterprise, which gives students opportunities to run their own company. He is also a volunteer for The Cinnamon Trust, which provides practical help for disabled or ill people who have a pet.

Martin Phillips
A resident of Shoreham-by-Sea and a member of the old Worthing and Southlands Hospitals Board, Martin has 20 years’ experience operating at Board level in sales and marketing and general management within the technical and engineering sectors. His community involvement includes being a Trustee and Chair of Relate for Brighton and Hove and District, a magistrate on the Sussex Western Bench and an advisor for the Citizens Advice Bureau.

Jon Furmston
A resident of Horsham, Jon has had a career with BT of over 20 years to date and in that time has held roles in financial, marketing, general management and regulatory governance up to Board level. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and a member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology

Joanna Crane
Joanna has worked in the financial services industry for more than 20 years, and has specific expertise in strategic planning, organisational change management and performance management. She has a degree in psychology from St. Andrews University.

Bill Brown
In his 30 years experience operating at Board level in the health care industry, Bill was chief financial officer of three top-10 UK pharmaceutical companies, and also held Board positions in manufacturing and operations, and marketing. Latterly, Bill acted as executive director in a European-wide role for Wyeth. Now retired from the pharmaceutical industry, his community involvement includes membership of the Board of Governors of a local independent school.