New Chairman for Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust

The Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust (NCA), which runs hospital and community healthcare services across Oldham, Salford, Bury and Rochdale, has announced the appointment of its new Chairman.

Professor Eileen Fairhurst has been appointed to help lead the organisation in the next step of its journey and to meet the ambitions set out in its Vision 10 strategy.

The Trust’s Council of Governors approved the appointment at its meeting on July 21, 2022.

This appointment follows the sad and sudden death of the NCA’s former Chairman, Professor Michael Luger, earlier this year.

Professor Fairhurst is currently Chairman of East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT), where she has held this position since February 2014.

She is a highly experienced Chairman and has chaired a number of large, complex public and third sector organisations, including acute, specialised mental health and primary care trusts.

Having established Salford Primary Care Trust (PCT) in 2001, it then became one of the highest performing PCTs in the country.

Latterly, she was the Chairman of NHS Greater Manchester.

By April 2013, NHS Greater Manchester had facilitated the establishment of twelve CCGs in the ten GM Metropolitan Borough Councils.

She is Professor in Public Health at the University of Salford where she has an international research profile.

The exact details including the date of Professor Fairhurst’s departure from ELHT and when she is due to start in post at the NCA are yet to be finalised.

Mrs Chris Mayer CBE continues to hold the position as Interim Chair of the NCA Trust. 

The Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust (NCA) brings together staff and services from Salford Royal and The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trusts. 

The NCA was formally established as a single NHS Trust on 1 October 2021 and has been working together as a group since 2016.

The Trust employs around 20,000 staff – the NCA Family – delivering healthcare services to over one million people across Salford, Oldham, Rochdale and Bury, as well as providing more specialist services to patients from Greater Manchester and beyond.

Patients and service users may receive a range of integrated health and social care services at their home or in their community, or be treated and cared for in one of our four hospitals – Salford Royal Hospital, The Royal Oldham Hospital, Rochdale Infirmary or Fairfield General Hospital in Bury.

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