{"id":611318,"date":"2026-09-01T15:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T15:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/611318\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T15:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T15:40:16","slug":"new-chair-for-essex-mental-health-trust-board-appointed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/611318\/","title":{"rendered":"New chair for Essex mental health trust board appointed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A new interim chairwoman has been appointed at an NHS trust at the centre of an ongoing mental health public inquiry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jackie Craissati will lead the Essex Partnership University Foundation Trust (EPUT) board from Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">EPUT has been the subject of criticism <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/ckgede08dv3o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">as part of the Lampard Inquiry<\/a>, examining the deaths of more than 2,000 people at NHS-run mental health units in Essex between 2000 and 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Craissati said: &#8220;I&#8217;ve always been passionate about high quality health care and the potential for mental health and community services to work closer together.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">EPUT provides community health, mental health and learning disability services.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In March, the Care Quality Commission <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c5ywj77xey0o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">inspected parts of EPUT<\/a> and found there was a &#8220;disconnect&#8221; between senior leaders and frontline service and warned that leadership at the trust needed to improve. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Craissati takes over the role from Hattie Llewelyn-Davies who joined the trust in April 2025 until her death in May.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She has worked in the NHS for more than 30 years and is also the current chairwoman of Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust and of the Crohn&#8217;s and Colitis UK charity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m delighted to be working with the board and wider team at EPUT to continue their focus on developing and improving services for communities across Essex and beyond,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Trevor Smith, interim chief executive of EPUT, said: &#8220;We&#8217;re delighted that Jackie will be joining the trust, bringing her experience and leadership to EPUT at this critical time in the transformation of services to give our patients the best possible care.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Do you have a story suggestion for Essex? Contact us below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new interim chairwoman has been appointed at an NHS trust at the centre of an ongoing mental&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-611318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}