Women’s Services Committee Chair’s Briefing - October 2023

Welcome to the second Women’s Services Committee Chair’s briefing.

The most recent meeting of the committee was due to take place at the end of September, however we took the decision not to go ahead with this. Instead, we’re using the next few weeks to take a more detailed look at the scope of the women’s services programme, the plan for delivering this work, and the roles that different NHS organisations locally will play in making it happen.

We recently appointed an independent clinical lead and a programme director for women’s services, and they have been helping us review where we have got to so far. In addition, a shared interim Chief Executive for Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust has now been announced, and it’s important that we take the impact of this new leadership into consideration. We’ll be discussing how we move forward at the next meeting of the Women’s Services Committee in early November, and I’ll provide another update on this page afterwards.

Finally, you might be aware that a march about several NHS-related issues, including the future of Liverpool Women’s Hospital, took place in Liverpool on 7 October. In light of this, it’s really important that we’re clear about where the programme is up to, and stress that at this stage no decisions or proposals have been made about women’s services. Although this issue has been looked at in the past, we need to fully consider the situation as it stands now, and develop potential options for the future, and we’ll be involving patients, carers, the public, and other stakeholders in this work. Kathryn Thomson, Chief Executive of Liverpool Women’s, shared a message on the trust’s website, which sets out what has happened to date.

I look forward to providing a further update on the work of the committee in a few weeks’ time.

Raj Jain

Chair, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB, and Women’s Services Committee