New chief executive to take the helm

Mairead McCormick has been appointed as chief executive at Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust (KCHFT) and will take up her role later this year. 

A nurse by background, Mairead is an experienced director, with 34 years in the NHS.

For the past five years, she has been chief operating officer and deputy chief executive at Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust which, like KCHFT, holds an outstanding Care Quality Commission rating.

KCHFT Chair John Goulston said: “Mairead was the outstanding candidate after an extensive and open recruitment process. Mairead comes to us with an excellent track record of achievement from an outstanding trust.

“On behalf of the Board, we are really looking forward to Mairead working with our colleagues and our health and care partners to improve the health and wellbeing of people who we see, treat and serve.”

Mairead qualified as a nurse in her native Northern Ireland, then came to England to specialise as an emergency nurse, before working in Australia and New Zealand. She returned to the UK to continue her career in emergency nursing, later taking up a post as head of nursing at Kingston and then divisional manager for woman and child health.

She has a national reputation for her work in emergency care, working with NHS England in the Emergency Care Intensive Support Team carrying out a whole system review. As deputy chief operating officer at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, Mairead was instrumental in supporting the trust out of special measures.

Driven by improving outcomes for patients and working with teams to deliver transformations, she said: “I am delighted to be appointed as KCHFT’s new chief executive. I live in Kent and feel very connected to the people here, so it will be a great privilege for me to lead the organisation in making lives better for the local people. I look forward to working with the KCHFT team, local communities and partners, and to our future together.”

Mairead lives in Hever, in Kent and will take over from Acting Chief Executive Gordon Flack.