Working together to deliver excellence in healthcare

The Great North Healthcare Alliance is a partnership between the NHS Trusts in Gateshead, Newcastle, Northumbria and North Cumbria.

By working together, we believe we can deliver better care for our local communities. Together we care for 1.3m patients over 4,600 square miles. We employ 40,000 staff and an annual budget of around £3.4billion.

By bringing together our resources, our expertise and our skills, we can create a health system that delivers world-class healthcare.

By working together, we will: ​

  • Improve patient outcomes and reduce inequalities by strengthening our services and making it easier to access the best clinical care. ​
  • Create great places to work by joining up our recruitment and staff experience offer and by sharing career development opportunities.​
  • Pioneer innovation, transformation, research and development, making the most of our academic and commercial opportunities.​
  • Reduce health inequalities and do more for our economy, environment and communities through local and national partnerships.​
  • Create a financially sustainable value for money health economy that raises revenue by treating as many patients as possible within the resources available, commercial activity and cost reduction.

There are many benefits of working together. Here are some examples of how joint working is helping improve patient care and making our organisations stronger:

  • Community Diagnostic Centre Gateshead Metrocentre – Newcastle and Gateshead have worked together to establish a community diagnostic centre in the heart of the Gateshead Metrocentre - a perfect location for patients who require diagnostic test. 
  • The Northern Cancer Centre Carlisle – cancer patients in North Cumbria no longer have to travel to Newcastle for highly specialist treatments thanks to this collaboration between the North Cumbria and Newcastle Trusts.
  • Audiology – by working together the trusts in Northumberland, Newcastle and Gateshead are improving access to services and the quality of care through a mixture of static and mobile facilities
  • Paediatric care - joint working across all four trusts has built stronger relationships and collaboration on recruitment has increased the capacity for paediatric care to its highest level for ten years.
  • Oral and Maxillo Facial Surgery -  specialist surgeons from Newcastle are  supporting care to patients in North Cumbria and adding extra capacity in Northumbria
  • Hepato-pancreato-billary (HPB) - A collaboration between Northumbria and Newcastle is helping to treat more patients through the Day Treatment centre at the Freeman Hospital
  • Interstitial lung disease - closer collaboration between Northumbria and Newcastle is helping to improve patient choice and access to care
  • ‘One NHS’ Estate – Manor Walks. Newcastle and Northumberland are working together on a joint project to move Newcastle services to a refurbished Brockwell site to sit alongside Northumbria services in a ‘one NHS’ location.
  • Research and innovation – collaboration across all Trusts to coordinate research programmes and funding bids. The scale of the Alliance and the very varied socio-demographic profile make the GNHCA an attractive area for clinical trials and research.

The four trusts: Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS FT, Gateshead Health NHS FT, North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS FT and Northumbria Healthcare NHS FT have all signed up to a Collaboration Agreement which enshrines the above objectives and how they should be met. To support this, we have set up some formal governance processes to allow us to meet together and take joint decisions.

The principal place to steer the delivery of the Alliance objectives are Committees in Common, which all four trusts are a member of. In recognition of their very close ties, Newcastle, Northumbria and Gateshead have taken arrangements a step further by establishing a Joint Committee, a tighter form of governance to support joint decision making. Alongside this, the Trusts are also exploring the possibility of recruiting a Shared Chair. 

Although North Cumbria is not part of the Joint Committee, it has entered into bilateral arrangements with Newcastle Hospitals to work together to help make services in North Cumbria more sustainable.

A diagram showing the committee structure.

 

Current membership of our Alliance Steering Group

  • Chair: Alison Marshall  - Chair, Gateshead Health (JC and CC)
  • Paul Ennals – Chair, Northumbria Healthcare and Newcastle Hospitals (JC and CIC)
  • Steven Morgan Chair, North Cumbria (CIC)
  • Trudie Davies - Chief Executive, Gateshead Health (JC and CIC)
  • Jim Mackey - Chief Executive, Newcastle Hospitals (JC And CIC)
  • Birju Bartoli  - Chief Executive, Northumbria Healthcare (JC and CIC)
  • Lyn Simpson - Chief Executive, North Cumbria (CIC and in attendance at JC)

Key: JC = Joint Committee; CIC = Committees in Common