Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust has completed the acquisition of Calderstones Partnership NHS Foundation Trust to establish a centre of excellence for learning disabilities.
The two trusts, who have both been rated as ‘good’ following the inspection of their services by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), will now share expertise and good practice to care for some of the most vulnerable members of society.
“I’m delighted to see this coming together of two highly rated trusts,” said Joe Rafferty, chief executive of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust. “As one organisation, we are absolutely focussed on delivering the very best care and support for our service users.
“We’re now set to deliver the NHS national programme of Transforming Care to ensure the highest standards of care are available to everyone. A full consultation will take place that will involve all stakeholders including service users to ensure that they are fully involved and able to help shape their future care.”
“The ambitions of the Transforming Care agenda are at the centre of this. We want to deliver better, more local care for people with learning disabilities, who require highly specialist forensic support.
Specialist mental health trust Mersey Care, who recently became a Foundation Trust, have already worked for a number of years with Calderstones and shared several senior appointments. These include Dr David Fearnley, Medical Director of both Trusts, who was also appointed this year to a major national role as NHS England’s Associate National Director for Secure Mental Health.
Mersey Care’s 4,000 staff work across more than 30 sites across Merseyside. Senior clinicians have proposed that local provision for learning disability services are made available in Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Merseyside.
The 800 staff formerly working for Calderstones in Lancashire and Greater Manchester are now in a specialist division of Mersey Care with 160 service users in their care.
“The ambitions of the Transforming Care agenda are at the centre of this,” added Rafferty. “We want to deliver better, more local care for people with learning disabilities, who require highly specialist forensic support.
“I want to thank all our colleagues and partners for working so hard to make this happen. Mersey Care prides itself on being a learning organisation and by learning from each other we can work towards delivering our ambition of ‘Perfect Care.’”
