Council of Governors approve new chief executive

The Council of Governors of the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has today unanimously approved the appointment of Anna Dugdale as chief executive.

Anna has been acting chief executive since July 2008 and was formerly director of resources at the trust. The Norwich-based 42-year-old, a mother-of-two, is an accountant by profession and first joined the Norfolk and Norwich as deputy finance director in 1993. Prior to working in the NHS, Anna worked in the private sector.

The interview panel, which included a publicly elected Governor and a senior consultant, interviewed five shortlisted candidates late last week. The Council of Governors met today and approved the appointment.

Chairman David Prior said: “We attracted a strong field of candidates for the job and the interview panel unanimously concluded that Anna was the outstanding candidate. She has demonstrated that she has great vision and imagination as well as the ability to get things done. I have no doubt that the trust will now go from strength to strength”.

Chief executive Anna Dugdale said; “Our staff have delivered a huge amount of change in recent years and I'm very excited about what we can go on to achieve for our patients. Our priorities will be to develop our clinical services, improve even further on our clinical quality and high patient satisfaction, and to develop our reputation for teaching and research with the UEA and our other partners in the Norwich Research Park.”

The Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was the highest rated multi-specialty trust in the country for quality of care, according to the latest Healthcare Commission national in-patient survey. The Foundation Trust runs the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and Cromer Hospital, employs more than 5,700 staff, has a turnover of more than £330 million a year, and treats more than 600,000 patients annually.