A NEW boss has been appointed to head up a consortium aiming at improving health in north Essex.
Ed Garratt is now in charge of the Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care System (ICS), as well as three clinical commissioning groups spanning the neighbouring counties.
The area was picked by national NHS bosses to be one of the first in the country to be an ICS - and given £3 million to spend on improving health and wellbeing.
In an ICS, NHS organisations such as Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), hospitals, mental health and ambulance trusts and GP surgeries work in partnership with councils and voluntary organisations to take collective responsibility for improving the health outcomes of their populations.
So far, Dr Garratt plans to specifically expand three north Essex schemes centred around sports provision, community transport and nutritional meals for children during school holidays.
Dr Garratt, who is now responsible for one million people’s healthcare, said: “I am delighted and honoured to have been given the role of Executive Lead for our local ICS and to continue my leadership of all three CCGs.
“There is already an excellent relationship between the CCGs but this provides greater consistency of approach and will also enable the best use of our resources.”
He added Suffolk and north east Essex was picked to be a trailblazing ICS because NHS bosses had confidence in how health services performed and how money is spent.
He said eventually it meant the area would have more autonomy over how services are run.
The CCGs he is in charge of include North East Essex, Ipswich and East Suffolk and West Suffolk.
About 400,000 people are served by North East Essex CCG.
Dr Garratt was appointed by NHS England and NHS Improvement and takes over as ICS Executive Lead from Nick Hulme, chief executive of Colchester and Ipswich Hospitals.
Mr Hulme had been in the role since 2018 when the area was one of four to be selected by NHS bosses to become an ICS.
An ICS Independent Chair also to be appointed later this month.
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