1.

I manage the two large District General Hospitals in Shrewsbury and Telford. We also provide outreach services in community hospitals and our maternity unit at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt NHS Trust in Oswestry provides midwifery-led maternity services to Welsh residents.

2.

In a previous post I was Deputy Chief Executive of the former Shropshire and Staffordshire Strategic Health Authority whose remit was to develop and performance manage all Acute Trusts and Primary Care Trusts who serve a significant part of the English/ Welsh border.

3.

Our cross border health service provision covers Accident and Emergency services together with acute services to 60,000 of the population in Wales which are predominantly purchased by the Powys Local Health Board in a contract valued at £15 million per annum. We also provide renal dialysis facilities for this population at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital which is purchased by Healthcare Commission Wales - Specialised Services.

4.

The services we provide to this population are based on contracts negotiated by Welsh Commissioners under annually negotiated contracts with specified maximum waiting times as determined under Welsh NHS policies.

5.

The services provided to English resident patients (and Welsh residents registered with an English general practitioner) are funded under the English NHS Payment by Results system at a national tariff price and maximum waiting times as determined by the English NHS.

6.

We provide separate data to each of our commissioners to enable them to monitor our performance in accordance with each contract.

7.

We include the Welsh population in any public consultation processes and during any public consultation period we hold public meetings in Wales. We have recently undertaken a public consultation process on our application to become a Foundation Trust under the English NHS system and still consulted in Wales and made documents available in the Welsh language on request. We have included Montgomery in our calculation of the number of public governors, and positively encouraged Welsh residents to become Members of the Foundation Trust. We have allocated Partner Governor places to Powys Local Health Board and Montgomery Council. On our Stakeholder Panel for the Foundation Trust application we have representatives from Montgomery Community Health Council and Powys LHB, and my Trust endeavours to be fully inclusive to the Welsh residents in all aspects of our business. Our three principal commissioners in England and Wales have all fully supported the Foundation Trust application.