Interim chief executive appointed for Imperial College Healthcare

Professor Julian Redhead has been appointed trust-level chief executive for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust from 1 April 2026. This follows the appointment of trust chief executive, Professor Tim Orchard, as chief executive of the whole North West London Acute Provider Group. Julian was appointed on an interim basis while the group becomes established - for at least the next 12 months – and following a group-wide process.

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Agreeing the initial board director structure

Each trust board will continue to have its own chief nursing officer and chief medical officer, and one of the postholders in each role will take on additional responsibilities as lead chief nursing officer and lead chief medical officer for the group. These lead positions will be appointed for a period of three years through a formal process in the new year.

Each trust board will also continue to have its own chief financial officer and chief operational officer, and we will now establish an additional group financial officer and group chief delivery officer who will be members of all four boards. These will be permanent appointments to be made through a formal process in the new year.

We had already established that the group chief executive will be the ‘accountable officer’ for all four trusts and a member of all four trust boards. Each trust will also have its own ‘trust-level’ chief executive to head trust-level leadership teams, reporting to the group chief executive.

We already have a chair who sits on all four trust boards. We will now have seven non-executive director positions on each trust board. With each non-executive director being a member of two of the four trust boards, there will be four fewer non-executive directors overall.

We will determine the best approach to group or lead executive director responsibilities that do not include formal board membership over the coming weeks. We will be building on our collaborative approach where we have already moved to posts being shared across two, three or - in the case of the executive director for ICT - all four trusts. We are committed to ensuring that overall corporate administration costs will eventually be lower than they were before our move to a formal collaborative.

Streamlining board committees and governance

We will continue to have ‘board in common’ meetings, covering the whole group, four times a year, in public. We will establish revised group committees for quality, finance, and people, with oversight of trust and group level performance, and we will continue with group-level strategic committees focusing on data and digital, and estates, infrastructure and sustainability. We will also have a group strategy committee as and when needed to shape and oversee the development of strategy.

The existing quarterly trust standing committees will continue, though they will be extended to further strengthen and coordinate trust-level oversight and strategic direction and allow us to stand down separate trust-level quality, finance and people committees. We will have separate trust-level committees for audit and risk and for nominations and remuneration, as well as for other areas as needed by one or more trust, such as redevelopment for The Hillingdon Hospitals and Imperial College Healthcare, or charitable funds for The Hillingdon Hospitals and London North West University Healthcare. Interim chief executive appointed for Imperial College Healthcare Professor Julian Redhead has been appointed trust-level chief executive for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust from 1 April 2026. This follows the appointment of trust chief executive, Professor Tim Orchard, as chief executive of the whole North West London Acute Provider Group. Julian was appointed on an interim basis while the group becomes established - for at least the next 12 months – and following a group-wide process. [Include link to news story when live] Setting up a cross-trust group transition team to help coordinate changes A team made up of executive directors from across all four trusts who have responsibilities including governance, strategy, HR and communications has been set up to support the move to a group structure. Chaired by the group chief executive, it is responsible for ensuring the implementation and coordination of actions to allow us to move to a group model as effectively as possible, with clear and open communications throughout. The group’s first task is to build a detailed implementation plan.

Planning for major group engagement programme next year

One key action area to support the transition is the development of an engagement programme to help ensure the group adds maximum value to the working lives of our staff and the health and care of our patients and local communities. We envisage a range of opportunities for staff – as well as patient and lay representatives and other stakeholders – to share and discuss views about how we work now and what we should be looking to achieve in practical terms as a group, as well as the barriers and opportunities for more effective collaborative working. We are working up engagement plans for early next year that recognise the pressure on everyone’s time while also making sure everyone is able to feed in, with cross-trust as well as local level activities to help build relationships and understanding across our teams.