New national NHS role for boss of Portsmouth Hospitals
THE chief executive of Portsmouth’s hospitals will be leaving his post for a national position, it has been announced.
Mark Cubbon of Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust – which runs Queen Alexandra Hospital in Cosham and St Mary’s – will take up a new national role in the NHS leadership team later this month.
There, he will become the director for long-term plan delivery and deputy chief operating officer at NHS England.
Trust chairman Melloney Poole said: ‘Mark’s appointment is a real testament to his expertise, experience, and the quality of leadership he has demonstrated throughout his career and in particular during his time with us at PHU.
‘He has an unwavering focus on supporting our teams and individuals to provide the best possible care for our patients, whether they’re in hospital, in the community, or receiving treatment from our more specialist services.
‘He will also be able to draw his experience of the practical pressures, and the emotional strain, facing colleagues following the NHS’s incredible response to Covid-19, as well as his ability to develop effective partnerships between organisations.’
Mr Poole added that Mr Cubbon has played a ‘pivotal’ role in the trust’s improvements at QA and St Mary’s, and securing investment into Portsmouth.
‘Though I know colleagues across Portsmouth, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and further afield will miss him, we all recognise how valuable Mark’s expertise will be in shaping future healthcare services at a national level,’ he said.
Penny Emerit, the trust’s deputy chief executive and director of strategy and performance, will take up the role of chief executive
ACCORDING to the Portsmouth Climate Action Board a net zero Portsmouth would be based on a circular economy. This means instead of the take-make-waste model of consumption we have now, products and materials would be designed to keep circulating within the economy at their highest value for as long as possible, through re-use, repair, recycling, remanufacturing, and being delivered as services.
This is more resource efficient and helps companies to protect themselves from fluctuating commodity prices. The potential benefits from a circular economy in the UK have been estimated in one study at £29bn per year with the creation of around half a million jobs.
What would it look like in practice? There are glimpses of it now: Portsmouth City Council is collecting our food waste and converting it into biogas and green electricity, Southsea Coastal Defence Scheme is re-using the old sea defences to build the new ones, and the University of Portsmouth has helped develop an enzyme that turns PET plastic into a liquid that can be used for carbon fibre- a much higher grade product.
A neighbourhood group in Southsea has a thriving re-use and resource sharing circle that sees everything from books to furniture to clothes changing hands.
For more ideas of what a Net Zero Portsmouth might look like see: portsmouthclimateaction.org.uk/aims/ circular-economy.