Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust
Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust is the main provider of NHS services in Torbay. It runs Torbay Hospital. The area is seen as pioneering in the English NHS because of the work done with Torbay and Southern Devon Health and Care NHS Trust to integrate health and social care. In November 2013 it was selected as one of 14 Pioneer site for integrated care development. The former South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust took over Torbay and Southern Devon Health and Care NHS Trust forming a new organisation in October 2015 . It is the first organisation in England which provides both acute and community healthcare and adult social care services. Management. The trust's Chief Executive, Dr Paula Vasco-Knight, was suspended in February 2014 after allegations that she improperly gave her daughter's boyfriend a job as equality and diversity manager in July 2012 were upheld by an Employment tribunal. This followed the resignation of the trust Chair Peter Hildrew, and his acting replacement Topsy Murray. Following the tribunal Dr Vasco-Knight resigned from her position as NHS England’s national lead for equality and diversity. She resigned from the  trust in June 2014. Her doctorate was not fact not in medicine (she had at one time been a nurse) but was purely honorary. In the UK, it has always been considered "infra-dig" to use the title "Dr." if not a medical doctor (or bachelor of medicine) or an academic (in any field). In March 2017, the 53-year old Vasco-Knight was given a 16-month prison sentence, suspended for two years and ordered to do 250 hours unpaid work for an offence of fraud. Her husband was also sentenced on a similar count after both pleaded guilty  at Exeter Crown Court. Mairead McAlinden, former Chief Executive of the Southern Health and Social Care Trust was appointed Chief Executive in January 2015. It set up a joint venture with Health Innovation Partners, owned by Arcadis and Morgan Sindall Group, in August 2018. The plan is to build new health and wellbeing centres in Dartmouth and Teignmouth, and to redevelop emergency department at Torbay Hospital. It was allocated money as part of Boris Johnson's “40 new hospitals” programme in 2021, but is prioritising a new electronic patient record ahead of rebuilding its estate. This is expected to cost  around £58 million. Performance. The trust did well in the 2014 cancer patient experience survey and has agreed to pair up with North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust, which did badly, in a scheme intended to "spread and accelerate innovative practice via peer to peer support and learning". The trust was one of 26 responsible for half of the national growth in patients waiting more than four hours in accident and emergency over the 2014/5 winter. The trust asked for £14million capital funding to refurbish some of its ten operating theatres in July 2018. Subsequently the air handling  system in two of them failed, so they had to be closed and the waiting list for surgery grew, as did the trust's deficit.