What is the Barts way? | Our news

Listen to our Group CEO, Shane DeGaris reflect on the challenges of heading one of the country’s biggest hospital groups in the latest Leadership and Culture in Healthcare podcast.

In conversation with host Matthew Winn, Shane describes the evolution of our group operating model and our future role as “first among equals” steering partners in the acute provider collaborative for north east London.

He talks frankly about the privilege of being Group Chief Executive of an organisation that prides itself on being accountable, respectful, and inclusive while providing a huge range of equitable services for a diverse population.

“I try to be at a different hospital every day and most days I try to get out and walk about to talk to someone somewhere,” says Shane.

“I love the variety, I love the people. It is a challenge working in a trust this scale, but I have to remember I have a team of chief executives and they have their teams. My job is not to run the operations at any hospital, there is a team of people doing that, my job is to make it easier for them to do that, through group collaboration and the work we do in the broader system.”

The theme of the podcast this season is mergers and groups, and Shane highlights our joint work with Homerton Healthcare and Barking, Havering and Redbridge hospitals to establish a mutual procurement partnership. Acknowledging the current financial pressures in the NHS, he says he is motivated by the transformation and innovation opportunities.

“I think there is a real chance (to make progress) in our patch with the acute provider collaborative, and as the 10-year plan is coming out there is going to be a licence to operate more in the space of accountable care, and how we work together on population health. What we really want to do is focus our effort and resource, human and financial, on the huge health inequalities we have in the patch.”

Read more: 

• Delivering our vision
• Our plan for a healthy future