Trust Chair to retire

Tony Gallagher will retire from his role as AWP Chair when his 4 year term of office ends on 11 July.

Tony joined our Board as a Non Executive Director in April 2008, becoming our Chair in 2012, following the departure of the then Chief Executive and Chair.

He took on the role of Chair at a time of great uncertainty for the organisation and with very clear goals. As he told us (Ourvoice Summer 2012): "I want to allow all of our staff the space to think about service users and carers." This was the priority rather than "thinking about business units or redesign."

Tony led significant change, with the Trust becoming more clearly accountable to the local communities it serves and he committed the organisation to becoming more open and transparent with its service users, carers and stakeholders. He supported the involvement of service users and carers to ensure their voices were better heard and latterly chaired the Trustwide Involvement Group, attended the Carers Forum, and through this brought groups of people together to share their views to begin to make a real difference.

During his term of office, Tony has used his considerable experience as a business leader to ensure the Trust has met its key objectives and he has worked tirelessly to ensure that we always aspired for improvement, never settling for less than 100%. As Chair he has encouraged public participation at Board meetings while ensuring that Board business gets done.

Tony said: "My tenure as Chair was coming to an end and, after eight years on the Board of AWP, I felt that the organisation had grown in maturity and confidence and the goals set at the start have been achieved, with much credit going to all the staff and management of AWP who have been on this journey with me. With Hayley and the Board in good shape the Trust had the right level of stability to continue on to the next phase of its journey under a new Chair.

"Now is the right time to make this announcement after our recent CQC inspection. The way all of our staff and my senior colleagues have worked to achieve the high standards which our service users and carers should expect from us, is something that I am immensely proud of."

29^th June will be Tony's final Board meeting as Chair but he will be in the Trust until 11 July and hopes to have an opportunity to say 'goodbye' and 'thank you' to as many staff as he can.

He said: "When you've been in an organisation and seen it progress and change so much you don't suddenly stop being interested and caring about it.

"I believe we are a stronger organisation now, with a great commitment to service users, carers and, importantly, our staff. We are also part of successful partnerships and have strong relationships with our CCGs. I am enormously grateful to everyone for playing their part in this."

Hayley Richards said: "Tony has been an outstanding leader and just what this Trust needed: someone strong, committed and absolutely unshakeable in his belief that we can do better. With his leadership, we have been able to make great headway in reaching for higher standards and the entire Trust wishes him well."

Susan Thompson, our Vice Chair, has agreed to act as Chair from 12 July 2016 while we work with NHS Improvement on the recruitment of Tony's successor as Chair.

Ruth Brunt will also step into the role of acting Vice-Chair as well as continuing with her role as Senior Independent Director.