A new chief executive has taken charge at the NHS trust that runs the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.
George Findlay rejoined the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust yesterday (Wednesday 1 June) just over a year after he left to run Medway NHS Foundation Trust.
Dr Findlay was previously the deputy chief executive and chief medical officer at University Hospitals Sussex which was created from a merger last year of Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) and Western Sussex Hospitals.
He joined Western in 2014 as part of the management team under Dame Marianne Griffiths which led the trust to an “outstanding” from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
After BSUH was rated “inadequate” in 2016 and place in “special measures”, the Western management team took charge in Brighton in 2017 before the two trusts merged.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Dr Findlay became a regular guest on radio and TV, explaining the virus and its effects to the public.
He replaces Andy Heeps who took over from Dame Marianne as interim chief executive when she retired in April.
Dr Findlay said: “It’s an enormous honour to be back in Sussex leading our hospitals. The pandemic has taken its toll of health services but our people have never stopped making sure patient care is their top priority.
“As we continue to recover from the worst of the pandemic, we’re focused on improving patient flow through our hospitals, clearing our backlog of patients waiting for treatment and doing all we can to make sure every patient gets the best possible experience.”
University Hospitals Sussex has a budget of about £1 billion a year and serves Brighton and Hove, Mid Sussex and the coastal stretch of West Sussex from Shoreham to Chichester.
The trust is also spending £500 million on a modernisation of the Royal Sussex where it provides local health care while serving as a regional specialist centre.
UH Sussex runs the Royal Sussex, the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital and the Sussex Eye Hospital, in Brighton.
It also runs Southlands, in Shoreham, Worthing Hospital, St Richard’s, in Chichester, and the Princess Royal, in Haywards Heath.
The trust said: “Our seven hospitals host more than 1.5 million outpatient appointments, A&E (accident and emergency) visits and surgery cases every year and employ nearly 20,000 staff.”
