Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust, commonly referred to as HCT, is an

NHS The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

organisation providing adult and children's community health services, such as

district nursing District Nurses work manage care within the community and lead teams of community nurses and support workers. The role requires registered nurses to take a NMC approved specialist practitioner course. Duties generally include visiting house-bound ...

and health visiting, across

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

. It also provides some services in West

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, in prisons and specialist care to a population of more than 1.1 million.

History

The Trust was established on 1 November 2010 as part of the

Transforming Community Services Transforming Community Services was a programme in the English NHS which operated from 2008 at a national level and continued during the implementation of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Although the rhetoric of the programme was about improv ...

initiative by virtue of statutory instrument number 2010/2464 made under the

National Health Service Act 2006 The National Health Service Act 2006c 41 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It sets out the structure of the National Health Service in England. It was altered and completely renumbered by the Health and Social Care Act 2012c 7. ...

. Prior to this it was the “provider services arm” of the then East & North Hertfordshire

Primary Care Trust Primary care trusts (PCTs) were part of the National Health Service in England from 2001 to 2013. PCTs were largely administrative bodies, responsible for commissioning primary, community and secondary health services from providers. Until 31 May ...

and West Hertfordshire

Principal activities

The trust had an income of £140m during 2014/15 and employed around 3,000 staff. Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust (HCT) is the principal provider of community-based healthcare to the 1.1m residents of Hertfordshire and, since April 2012, 68,000 children in West Essex. The Trust provides community-based services for adults and older people, children and young people, and a range of specialist care services. It had around two million contacts with people during the course of the year and were dealing with people from before birth until death. The Trust operates its services through three business units and the services they provide are set out in the Service Portfolio. In January 2019 it lost a £44 million-a-year contract in west Hertfordshire to

Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust is a NHS trust which provides community health services to a number of London boroughs, as well as Hertfordshire. History In 2009, the community service parts of Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington ...

Performance

In February 2015 the

Care Quality Commission The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care of the United Kingdom. It was established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in England. I ...

, the quality regulator of the NHS, conducted an inspection of the trust's services. The inspectors' report was published in July 2015. The CQC carried out a second inspection in 2016 and rated the trust as 'Good'. It was named by the ''

Health Service Journal ''Health Service Journal'' (''HSJ'') is a news service that covers policy and management in the National Health Service (NHS) in England. History The '' Poor Law Officers' Journal'' was established in 1892. In 1930, it changed its name after ...

'' as one of the top hundred NHS trusts to work for in 2015. At that time it had 2415 full-time equivalent staff and a sickness absence rate of 4.17%. 67% of staff recommend it as a place for treatment and 53% recommended it as a place to work.

Information and technology

HCT is known as a dynamic and innovative exponent of IM&T. It has a highly respected electronic clinical record deployment using TPP SystmOne across all its services and has implemented agile and mobile working to give staff more flexibility about how and when they work. The Trust has seven principles that underpin its IM&T strategy. They are: # To sustain a mobile workforce with access to a real-time

electronic patient record An electronic health record (EHR) is the systematized collection of patient and population electronically stored health information in a digital format. These records can be shared across different health care settings. Records are shared throu ...

regardless of location. # To be an intelligence-driven organisation that uses evidence to inform decision making. # To integrate, interface and communicate with partners and partner systems to provide co-ordinated services across health and social care. # To use technology for remote and assistive care. # To use technology in corporate functions to better support front line clinical staff. # To utilise technology to enable change and improve service delivery. # To use information and technology to deliver the best health outcomes. Over the last few years, the trust has digitized many of its core systems and processes to give maximum benefits to staff and patients.

Board of directors

Since March 2012 David Law has held the role of Chief Executive of Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust.

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Organisations based in Hertfordshire Health in Hertfordshire Community health NHS trusts