Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust names its new chairman

Pearse Butler, will join the Trust at the end of June 2018.

Mr Butler has extensive experience working in the NHS and, until recently, served as the chairman of University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust between October 2014 and March 2018.

His past roles include working as an NHS chief executive in organisations including Royal Liverpool Children’s Hospital (Alder Hey), Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals and the former Cumbria and Lancashire Strategic Health Authority.

Mr Butler said: “I am delighted to have been appointed as chairman.

“I look forward to working with the board, governors and all the staff to continue to ensure we offer the highest quality of service to our residents”.

He succeeds Ian Johnson in the post.

The Trust has praised Mr Johnson, its former chairman, for his excellent contribution to the organisation over the past six years and also thanked Karen Crowshaw for her excellent work as Interim Chairman over recent weeks.

Mr Butler’s appointment was formally approved by the Council of Governors and his term of office will be for three years from this month until June 2021.

There has been controversy over the appointment process when Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden last month called for the recruitment process to be more transparent and feared it was being rushed.

But hospital chiefs said the Trust had “undertaken a full, open and transparent process”.