It has been mired by high-profile failings
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is based at Highbury Hospital in Highbury Vale, Nottingham(Image: Joseph Raynor/ Reach PLC)
The scandal-hit NHS trust responsible for mental health in Nottinghamshire has announced who will soon take over the struggling provider.
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which continues to be heavily scrutinised for the disastrous care it gave to Nottingham attacks killer Valdo Calocane, has appointed Mark Axcell as its new chief executive.
Mr Axcell will replace the trust’s much-criticised current boss Ifti Majid, who is retiring after seeing the trust through the ongoing evidence stage of the Nottingham Inquiry into paranoid schizophrenic Calocane’s killings.
The NHS leader, who has spent most of his career in the West Midlands, will start his role as the head of Nottinghamshire’s mental health services in June.
“I’m really pleased to be joining the trust at this critical time,” the newly-appointed chief executive said.
Mark Axcell was previously chief executive officer of the NHS Black Country Integrated Care Board (Image: NHFT)
“I look forward to working with staff, partners and our communities to continue to improve our services.
“Having spent much of my career leading mental health and community organisations, I understand both the scale of the task and the importance of getting it right for patients and staff.”
The scale of the task facing the new boss, as Mr Axcell acknowledged, is significant.
The reputation of the NHS trust has been severely damaged by the fallout of the Nottingham attacks in June 2023, where patient Valdo Calocane killed students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, before killing Nottingham grandad Ian Coates, 65, and using his van to attempt to kill three more people.
A series of reports by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and NHS have criticised the poor treatment and risk assessment of the killer and the trust will doubtless be under the microscope countless more times at the ongoing Nottingham Inquiry.
Despite the trust’s insistence that it has improved since 2023, the CQC – which regulates healthcare – said in January that its leadership required improvement and staff told inspectors that they faced reprisals, racism and harassment as part of the organisation’s ‘blame culture’.
Outside of concerns around the quality of its care and leadership, the trust – which is a major employer as well as being an important healthcare provider – faces a dire financial situation and is tens of millions of pounds off budget.
Tom Cahill CBE, the chair of the trust, said Mr Axcell was a “strong appointment” who had more than 10 years’ experience as a chief executive leading large and complex mental health organisations.
“The board wanted to appoint an inspirational leader who would guide it through the next phase of our journey and support the delivery of our ambition to provide the very best possible care to the people who need it,” Mr Cahill said.
“I am confident we have found that person and I look forward to working with him.”
In December last year, Ifti Majid, the trust’s current chief executive, announced his plans to retire after three years in the job.
The NHS trust said he had delayed his retirement to support the organisation and its staff through the Nottingham Inquiry’s oral hearings phase, which is scheduled to finish in June.
Emails obtained by Nottinghamshire Live showed that, prior to the hearings, Mr Majid had told staff he was “fed up” of filling out paperwork for the judge-led inquiry, which started in late February.