Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust appoints new chief executive
Dr Tracey Batten has been appointed chief executive of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in North West London. She will take up her new post in early April. Dr Batten has a distinguished career as a clinician and clinical leader and until recently was the chief executive of St Vincent’s Health, Australia’s largest charitable hospital group.
Sir Richard Sykes, the chairman of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust said, “I am very pleased that we are now able to announce the appointment of Tracey Batten. We conducted an exhaustive, global search for our new chief executive and in Tracey I am certain we have found the kind of aspirational and inspirational leader we were looking for. She has a strong record of clinical and managerial leadership and the organisational transformation she achieved at St Vincent’s Health was particularly impressive. I have always felt that clinicians should be closely involved in the management and leadership of NHS Trusts but the best clinical leadership comes from those with both clinical and managerial skills and experience. Tracey Batten is such a leader.”
Dr Batten was educated at the University of Melbourne where she qualified as a doctor. She later acquired a Masters in Health Administration from the University of New South Wales and a MBA from Harvard. She worked in the NHS in the early 1990s as a Senior House Officer and Registrar at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and spent some time at Barts in London in the late 1980s as a medical student.
In 2001 Dr Batten was appointed chief executive of Dental Health Services in the Australian state of Victoria before moving on to run Eastern Health, a group of public hospitals in Melbourne and then becoming chief executive of St Vincent’s Health. St Vincent’s provides hospital and aged care services in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. It has 16,000 staff, deals with over a million patients a year and has a budget of £1bn. As chief executive Tracey Batten transformed the organisation from a group of separate hospitals into an integrated healthcare system.
Dr Batten said:"The prospect of leading one of England’s largest and most prestigious NHS Trusts is both an honour and an exciting challenge. I hope to bring fresh ideas from another public health system and to help Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust complete its journey towards Foundation Trust status. I am deeply committed to ensuring not only the very best clinical outcomes for patients but that their wider experience of the healthcare system is the very best too. I look forward to meeting my new colleagues and our many patients in the near future.”
Dr Batten will be moving to London in the next few weeks. Her husband will be joining her when his work commitments allow. Dr Batten’s daughter and brother both currently live in London.
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