Jenni Douglas-Todd has been appointed as the new Chair of Isle of Wight NHS Trust and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.
Jenni will take up the role from April 2025 and will lead the statutory Boards of the 2 organisations, operating as an NHS Group with Boards in Common.
Isle of Wight NHS Trust and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust formed an NHS Group in June 2023 and are led by a single executive team with a joint vision and strategic aims to help provide and improve services across both sites.
Jenni was appointed by NHS England and will replace Melloney Poole OBE, who has been Chair of the Isle of Wight NHS Trust (IWT) since 2020 and Portsmouth Hospital University NHS Trust (PHU) since 2017.
She will take up the new role in addition to and alongside her existing position as Chair of University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, which is independent of her new position at IWT and PHU.
Jenni is currently also Chair of NHS Dorset Integrated Care Board, where she has been since 2020, and will step down at the end of the financial year to take on the new role at IWT and PHU.
Jenni has significant experience across senior roles, including as Chief Executive for the Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner and Hampshire Police Authority and Director of Equality and Inclusion at NHS England.
She has said:
“I’m delighted and excited to be joining the trusts to build on all the great work taking place for our local communities. This is an important time for both organisations as we look to continue the improvement of local services and strengthen our acute partnership on both sides of the Solent.
“A joint clinical model is being implemented across the trusts to support and create resilient services and this has been boosted with significant investments in their estate. The opening of a new Emergency Department at Queen Alexandra Hospital and the new Community Diagnostic Hub at St Mary’s are just two examples from the last month of how services are being modernised for patients on the mainland and the island, providing care for when people urgently need it and identifying illness at the earliest stage.
“Together with thousands of the hard-working staff working across both trusts, we have a great opportunity to continue our journey of improvement and also address the challenges for the NHS locally.”
The article doesn’t say, but we can only assume she is not an Islander? That being the case she’ll have no clue as to the problems faced by people here. This is not the mainland, we cannot just get on the motorway and jump from hospital to hospital to receive treatment. The Island has extortionate and unreliable ferry services. Let’s hope she understands this else her appointment will be of little use to the Island and its population!
She will obviously be too busy to bother with the island.
The island needs diversity, the Caulkheads
don’t have a clue what’s going on.
Jenni will do a much better job.
Would it not make sense for the Chair of these trusts to at least some medical/clinical background rather than just a professional committee sitter?
Good point, but that’s how things are thesedays.
We have a chancellor doing a job she is not qualified to do
it’s the new normal.
Qualifications count for nothing thesedays, it is who you
know.
Also telling the truth does not count for nothing.
Dave. Goodness gracious me, some medical/clinical background, what-ever next. Are you intoxicated? This is 2024 and such common sense remarks could be viewed as tantamount to insurrection in this now shadow of what was once the best country on earth.
As you no doubt know, all these type of appointments are political and the powers that be, in my view, have no real interest in anything other than their own advancement. What’s the betting a Damehood will soon be on the agenda for the lady.
‘Chief Executive for the Hampshire Police’
‘Director of Equality and Inclusion at NHS England’
Plus, not mentioned in the article:
‘chair for the General Dental Council’
‘member of the Judicial Conduct Investigating Office’
And, she’s also on ‘English Cricket Board’s Regulatory Committee’, ‘Hampshire Cricket Board’, and ‘Hampshire Sports & Leisure Holdings’
Basically, she sounds like a professional committee member.
I wonder what salary she’s taking from the NHS?
Great to see, the island needs someone who knows
what they are doing.
Good luck Jenni
I wonder what the salary is
Good luck , your going to need it . Another one promising so much. When they start to deliver maybe we’ll have a little more faith. Too many chiefs not enough Indians.