Background

The Northern Health and Social Care Trust became operational on 1 April 2007.

The Trust provides services to the areas formerly covered by Homefirst, Causeway and United Hospitals Trusts.

The Trust is geographically the largest in Northern Ireland, covering counties, Antrim and parts of Tyrone and Londonderry. The local government districts of Antrim, Ballymena, Ballymoney, Carrickfergus, Coleraine, Cookstown, Larne, Magherafelt, Moyle and Newtownabbey fall within the Northern Trust boundary. We employ 13,000 staff providing services to a population of around 440,000 both rural and suburban communities. Our annual budget is approximately £500 million.

Hospital Services

We provide a range of acute hospital and community services.

The main acute hospitals are Antrim Area Hospital, Causeway Hospital in Coleraine, Mid Ulster Hospital in Magherafelt and Whiteabbey Hospital. Additional hospital services are provided at Braid Valley, Dalriada, Moyle and Robinson Hospitals. Holywell Hospital in Antrim provides a range of acute and other in-patient mental health services.

Community Care

The greater range of services provided by the Trust is in community-based settings. We provide services to children and older people, nursing and support services at home, outreach mental health services and work with General Practitioners in the Primary Care Sector to support people outside a hospital setting.

Review of Public Administration

The Northern Health and Social Care Trust was established as one of the five HSC Trusts under the governments’ Review of Public Administration (RPA) in Northern Ireland. This restructuring and realignment will affect all aspects of the public sector with local councils and the education sector to follow from April 2008.

In addition to the five new trusts, RPA has also created a new Health and Social Services Authority (HSCA) and currently seven Local Commissioning Groups (LCG) who are together responsible for the commissioning and monitoring of services provided by the Trusts. LCGs have significant local primary care representation and they will work alongside and co-terminous with seven proposed new local government districts.