Appointment of Chair for new Integrated Care Board Cluster
The bodies responsible for understanding local health need and planning NHS healthcare have announced the designate appointment to the Chair role.
The three existing NHS Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) for Derby and Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, and Nottingham and Nottinghamshire will ‘cluster’ as part of wide-ranging Government reform of the NHS and healthcare landscape. The ICBs’ cluster arrangements will mean that the three current ICBs will work together whilst remaining separate legal entities and will have responsibility for healthcare planning and provision across Derby City, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire. The aim is to streamline operations, adjust the existing ICB role to have greater focus on health need and outcomes, and to reduce the overall taxpayer cost of NHS commissioning organisations. The clustered ICBs will oversee the local delivery of ambitious plans for NHS healthcare.
It has been confirmed by the Secretary of State for Health and Care that Dr Kathy McLean has been appointed as the Chair designate for the clustered ICBs. Kathy was already working as the Chair of Derby and Derbyshire ICB and Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB. The current Chair of Lincolnshire ICB, Dr Gerry McSorley, had already planned to retire this September.
Kathy said: “I am delighted to have been appointed as Chair designate of the clustered Integrated Care Boards for Derby and Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, and Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. The government has set out an exciting 10-Year Plan for the NHS, and ICBs will be at the heart of ensuring that we are understanding local healthcare need and commissioning services which can care for local patients, seek to prevent ill-health occurring and contribute to the wider health of our population alongside other statutory partners, not least our partners in local government.
“The clustering will see an overall reduction in spending on ICB management and will enable us to operate at greater scale to maximise the benefit for local people. It is fair to say that this process will see significant change for our staff, and a reduction in overall ICB workforce, and we are supporting our staff through that change programme.
“While the clustering arrangement represents a significant step towards ICBs operating on a much wider geographical footprint, any formal legal merger of the three existing ICBs will be subject to changes to legislation. Any step towards full merger is unlikely to take place before 2027 and this clustering arrangement does not necessarily mean a merger across this same geography is set in stone.
“I also want to pay tribute to the work of Dr Gerry McSorley, current Chair of Lincolnshire ICB, who is retiring. Gerry has dedicated many years of service to the NHS and his leadership and expertise will leave a lasting legacy on the Lincolnshire health and care system. I also want to thank him for his support during this transitional period and wish him all the best for his retirement.”
About Dr Kathy McLean:
- Kathy is the current Chair of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB and Derby and Derbyshire ICB.
- Prior to this, Kathy was Medical Director at Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for over six years, where she was also a Consultant Physician at the Trust from 1994 until 2009.
- Kathy was the Medical Director at the former NHS Trust Development Authority for three years up to 2016, then Medical Director at NHS Improvement until 2019. Prior to this she was the Clinical Transitions Director, helping to build the NHS Commissioning Board, which is now NHS England.
- Her work has focused on improving quality by building clinical leadership and expertise across the system, supporting the most challenged organisations and leading change.
- Kathy was Chair of University Hospitals Derby and Burton until 2022. She has also sat as a Non-Executive Director at Barts Health and Barking Havering and Redbridge NHS Trusts.
- Additionally, Kathy is Chair of the NHS Confederation’s Integrated Care System Network Board.
- In 2018 Kathy was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her services to leadership across the NHS.