Andrew Williamson CBE, qualified in Social Work in 1973, having previously worked as a Child Care Officer for Hampshire County Council.
A number of management posts in various authorities around the country culminated in moving to Devon in 1990 as Director of Social Services, a post he held for ten years.
In 1992 he was invited to join the Criminal Justice Council for its first three year term and is also a formerHonorary Secretary of the Association of Directors of Social Services.
In April 2000 Andrew was appointed to the post of Chair
of the North and East Devon Health Authority
and in April 2002 became the Vice Chair of the SouthWest Peninsular Strategic Health Authority ....!!!!? [ hey - this is the body criticised in the Healthcare Commission Report on the Cornwall mental health learning disability service delivered by the Cornwall Partnership Trust ...click on the link ]
In addition, during the past seven years, he has also worked in various European counties and in local authorities in England and Wales
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New :- candidates for the chief executive post in the new single Cornwall Primary Care Trust [ see new Chair above ] are being interviwed now - to take up their post in Cornwall next month.
Will they pick the chief executive of the old Cornwall Health Authority which passed on in 2000, their final good will gesture, the Treliske and GP overspend - to be paid off by all - even those, like the cornwall mental health who did not overspend, savings that are now blighting Cornwall mental health services
Knowing Cornwall, probably.
No !!! They picked Ann James
"
Ann worked as a Marketing Manager in the private sector before joining the NHS
National Management Training Scheme in 1989.
During her NHS career Ann has
worked at all levels including several senior posts in community and mental health
services across the country.
Ann has extensive experience working as a
commissioner of health services at a Primary Care Trust, Health Authority and at
Regional Office level.
She has a particular interest in mental health services,
children and families and older people and is highly committed to clinical, public and
patient involvement.
Ann has been Chief Executive of Plymouth Teaching Primary
Care Trust since its establishment in 2001."
August 2006 ..... what is going on in Cornwall mental health services?
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Musical Chairs ? The wheel turns ?
Monday 3rd July 2006
Management changes at Cornwall Partnership NHS Trust
Today's meeting of Cornwall Partnership NHS Trust board was told three directors have resigned from the Trust board.
They are:
Ken Wood will step down with immediate effect from his post as medical director but he will continue with his clinical work for the trust.
Director of nursing and service governance Mark Steer has also stepped down with immediate effect but will continue to lead improvements in the services for people with learning disabilities.
Blaise Mallon has resigned, by giving six months notice, from his post as director of finance.
Another NHS failure in Cornwall Against a background of inherited overspend on general health matched by yearly under resource funding in the secondary mental health funding in Cornwall NHS - the inspectorate - the HealthCare Commission - finds Cornwall learning disability service is a national scandal ... get the final Report go to How did it happen. A context of historical under-resource - 5% funding annually removed from the local Cornwall NHS specialist mental health Trust since 1998. [ not examined or taken into account by the Commission. They visited the Cornwall Partnership Trust and published an inspection report in February 2005 in February.
They chose to concentrate on services to the working age and old age groups.
Odd that - the psychiatric member was a consultant psychiatrist in learning disability [ I'm wrong here - it was during that visIt and inspection that the HC Commision was made aware of the complaints laid against the learning disability service. ]Nevertheless, the Commission should re-examine their method in scrutiny visits - it is family carers who will feel the unforeseen consequence of any poor service and who can be 'the voice', not the users.
I wrote to the Health Care Commission earlier and pointed out their visiting practice totally missed out on seeing family carers.
It is families that are most driven to reflect on the care given to their family members
It is difficult to get at representative people. Groups tend to be self selecting and those with grievances leave because they are not supported in groups.
But a delivery NHS Trust can always do a census to register significant family members for their in-patients, Then the visting NHS inspection team can pick out a sample, make the effort and go out and visit family homes or have them visited, to get the views and experience of what they know about the local conditions.
I suggest a pre-visit contact with such families - and then they will know what to look out for. ] The Cornwall Partnership Trust [ how to contact them ] is paid by the three Cornwall Primary Care Trusts to deliver to those needy with serious mental illness, and also has had to to deliver and supervise learning disability care - a quite different business of caring - which was pushed onto the managers of the secondary specialist mental health for Cornwall NHS commissioning tidiness, mistakenly so, because the two conditions of severe mental illness and learning disability, are totally different matters and management is totally different. In many areas elsewhere learning disability service is run by Local Authority Social Services. An over-stretched management in the Cornwall Partnership Trust has been made by the South West supervising body [ the SouthWest Peninsular Strategic Health Authority ] to come up with money saving and retrenchment .... to assist the general health side deal with the fact that it - the general health - Treliske Hospital and the GP service - has been overspending since 1999, never dealt with at that time by the old Cornwall NHS commissioners - Cornwall Health Authority. [ now the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health charity has received replies from half of UK mental health trusts that they also are having to cut back to pay for general health overspend ]
Management under stress to save, becomes pre-occupied with cost cutting exercises, staff structural re-arrangements, all with new, new policy guidelinesa, and, their minds on other things, falls into a laisser faire supervision, and inadequate visiting inspection of the services to vulnerable people. They all failed ! remember the usual government excuse and mantra ' best left to the local NHS commissioners - they know the local scene best ' !!!!? This is the comment from the healthcare commission Report !!! "Neither the Cornwall Primary Care Trusts who spend the local NHS money, nor the SouthWest Peninsular Strategic Health Authority did their job properly '
( Both organisations are coincidentally to be axed this year. )
"They did not check as they should have done". This is the response of the Chief Executive to the SouthWest Peninsular Strategic Health Authority ... who did not do their job properly. [ N.B. she was the last chief executive of the old Cornwall health Authority - the one that overspent ] Any system of care, if underfunded, will crack some time, some where - early signs are; a closed off unrevealing institution, a high turnover of clinical staff, use of agency staff, lack of management visiting at the workface, lack of contact with outside family and relatives, absence of social workers - properly in teams, doing social work which has lost it's priority - concern for the families. Cornwall NHS among the worst in mental health service for children and adolescence - source Dept of Health letter to Strategic Health Authorities !!!!
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