Our organisations have a lot in common and we share the same goals. At the heart of what we do are our patients and staff.

Here’s a bit more information about both trusts.

Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BCH)

We provide community healthcare services in 66 locations across Warrington, Halton, Cheshire, Merseyside and Greater Manchester.

We have 1,550 staff and an annual turnover of £97m. The majority of our care is delivered in patients’ homes or in places closer to where they live such as health centres, schools and GP surgeries.

We deliver community adult and children’s nursing and therapy services in Halton, Warrington and St Helens. Our community dental services cover Cheshire, Merseyside and Greater Manchester.

Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WHH)

We have two acute hospitals based in Warrington and Halton, and more than 30 community sites located across the area. We have 5,000 staff and an annual turnover of £347m.

We offer a full range of hospital services. These cover unplanned care, for example our Emergency Department (A&E), planned care such as maternity and children’s services, and clinical support which includes our radiology and outpatients departments.

You can read more about each organisation on the Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust websites.

North Cheshire and Mersey NHS Foundation Trust

Joining together as one organisation means we need a new name for our combined trust. We spoke to members of the public, patients, carers, community groups, partner organisations and staff to get their views on what our new trust should be called.

As a result, North Cheshire and Mersey NHS Foundation Trust will become our new name once we gain approval to legally become one organisation. We also plan for our dental service name to be ‘North West Community Dental Service’, which will make more sense for patients receiving dental care in Greater Manchester, for example.

Until we become one organisation we have a temporary partnership name, North Cheshire and Mersey Healthcare Partnership, which is used in limited circumstances to show how we are working more closely together.

We will continue to engage with others throughout the integration process as it develops.

We want to provide better care together

We need strong healthcare services that will be there to support our local communities in Warrington, Halton and the surrounding areas now and in the future. Our Better Care Together programme will bring Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust together as one single legal organisation.

We are working towards a date of April 2026 to make this happen. To do so we need to go through a full approval process first, which includes submitting our plans to NHS England and the Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Care.

Read more about our ‘Better Care Together: A case for change’ programme.
 
The benefits of integration

We know that by becoming one organisation we will be in a stronger position to achieve our goals and improve our healthcare services. This includes:

• improving access to services and waiting times
• providing patients with a better experience through joined up healthcare
• keeping people out of hospital and caring for them closer to home
• reducing health inequalities and providing the right services in the right locations
• supporting our staff to deliver the highest standard of compassionate care

The extent of the waiting time improvements we are able to make will vary by service as there are many other factors involved in this, including some that are beyond our control. While there will also be cost savings as part of the integration programme, the main reason for becoming one organisation is to improve patient care.

By being more efficient, reducing duplication and making the best use of the resources we have available to us, we can provide the best care possible.

Our two organisations began discussions about working more closely back in 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic delayed these talks but they started up again when it became clear that there were many opportunities to be gained by bringing our organisations together. Our plans for integration are backed by NHS Cheshire and Merseyside, the Integrated Care Board for our region.

They also support the aims of the government’s newly published 10 Year Health Plan which recognises that the NHS must continue to evolve so that we have services that are fit for the future.

Our progress so far

Over the past year our executive teams and trust boards have been working together to carefully develop our Better Care Together integration programme. They agreed to what is known as an ‘options appraisal process’ to identify the best way forward.

After considering several possibilities, which included a merger, acquisition or a shared leadership model, a recommendation was then taken to both boards in February. It was unanimously agreed that the preferred way forward is for the acquisition of Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust by Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

To be able to integrate our services and provide the best possible healthcare we have introduced a joint leadership team. We now have five joint executives, headed up by our chief executive Nikhil Khashu.

Read more about our joint Executive Team.

We are developing new and improved ways of working, starting first with the services that we see as an urgent priority. Some of our clinical and non-clinical teams in both organisations are already starting to work together and we are seeing many benefits from it.

Any proposed service changes that may happen during the process will involve staff, patients and the public as required.

Subject to all the required approvals, we are working towards becoming one single organisation in April 2026. We will keep you up to date with the latest news and developments.