Adrian Pennington
Adrian Pennington joined the NHS in June 1978 as a salaries and wages officer. He has worked his way through the Finance, Human Resource and Information departments before becoming a clinical service directorate manager in the early eighties.
Since that time, he has managed all acute specialities and service departments in a management career spanning 20 years.
In his current role, with the NHS East of England as Quality Director he has led the pilot of delivering quality reports in all organisations in the region, whilst contributing to the development of quality accounts regulation. In support of the emerging regulation, he has developed a quality improvement framework on behalf of NHS East of England.
In more recent times, he managed the South West Cardiothoracic Centre in Plymouth, became Divisional Manager of emergency and tertiary services, before becoming Deputy Chief Executive (Director of Operations) at Northampton General Hospital. He joined the Modernisation Agency in November 2002 to take up the post as the National Director of the CHD Collaborative, before becoming the Chief Executive Officer of the NHS Heart Improvement Programme, formally known as the CHD Collaborative.
Adrian was then appointed as the Chief Executive of James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Over a two year period the Trust became nationally recognised for reducing HCAI’s and became one of the first exemplar sites in the development of VTE Management. During a two year period the CQC rating rose to excellent / excellent.
Adrian has been a member of several National NHS Bodies, which include, CHD Programme Board, CHD Taskforce, CHD Workforce Care Group. He also led a Return on Investment review of the NHS in 2002.
During his career he has presented internationally on patient safety and service improvement. He has also presented on behalf of Harvard Business School at national events in the USA.
Adrian has also led the development of the first “patient pathway” service improvement tool, using SPC analysis to determine individual department or process capability. He also initiated the NHS to six Sigma and lean thinking.
