NHS Improvement has authorised two new Foundation Trusts giving patients in the Wirral and the North West of England a greater say over how their health services are run.
Wirral Community NHS Trust delivers community health services in the Wirral, Cheshire and Liverpool. It provides various services including community nursing, therapies, GP out of hours and walk-in-centres from more than 40 bases, as well as seeing patients in their own homes.
Mersey Care NHS Trust provides specialist inpatient and community mental health, learning disability and addiction services for adults in Liverpool, Sefton and Kirkby. It also provides medium secure services for Merseyside and Cheshire, and high secure services covering the North West of England, the West Midlands and Wales.
Mersey Care is the second provider of high secure services to become a Foundation Trust. These decisions, effective from 1 May, mean there are now 157 NHS Foundation Trusts in total, more than 60% of all Trusts in England’s NHS.
