New director for strategy and partnerships announced
We are delighted to announce that Ann Hepworth is to join the Barts Health group of hospitals as our new substantive director for strategy and partnerships.
This is an expanded role within the group executive team that seeks to align the priorities of our four hospital business units with the development of an integrated health and care system across north east London (NEL).
Ann arrives with a wealth of experience in this field, most recently as director of strategy for our neighbours at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHRUT). She played a key role in fostering closer collaboration between the two trusts and setting the conditions for a wider acute provider collaborative partnership (APC) with Homerton Healthcare.
Ann has spent most of her career in healthcare, working for a variety of NHS bodies in London and the South East, and running her own leadership consultancy. Before joining BHRUT in 2022 she was director of system improvement for NHS London.
As our group director of strategy and partnerships, she will lead work to renew our own clinical and organisational framework, and ensure it shapes the emerging collective clinical strategy of the APC. In particular she will support our hospital chief executives in developing place-based partnerships that deliver tangible improvements for local people and tackle health inequalities in our communities.
Ann succeeds Mark Turner, who was on secondment from NHS England during a period in which we started exploring how best to foster closer collaboration with the other acute trusts in NEL.
In this wider role she will provide Board-level leadership for our major strategic projects like the redevelopment of Whipps Cross hospital and the development of Barts Life Sciences. Ann will also lead business planning for the Trust, be responsible for our commercial function, chair the investment steering committee and liaise with the Barts Charity.
Ann said: “I am excited about this role and grateful for the opportunity ahead. My time at BHRUT has been amazing and I am glad to be able to continue to work closely with the Trust and for the benefit of the population of north east London.”