From this month, the NHS Confederation and NHS Providers will bring NHS leadership together in The NHS Alliance to represent their views to government jointly.
The NHS Confederation and NHS Providers will merge from April, 2026. What will be called The NHS Alliance plans to bring NHS leadership together, represent their views to government jointly, and support them to improve their services at a time of what they call “significant pressure and transformation for the NHS”.
Plans were initially announced in January.
The NHS Alliance will launch with Ciarán Devane, currently chair of the Health Service Executive (HSE) in Ireland, as its inaugural chief executive.
Devane has been executive director of the Centre for Peace and Security at Coventry University since 2021, chief executive of the British Council (2015-20) and chief executive at Macmillan Cancer Support (2007-14), for which he received a knighthood in 2015 for services to cancer patients. He was also on NHS England’s board as a non-executive director from 2012 to 2015.
“As the NHS Confederation and NHS Providers, we have not come together to be bigger: we have come together to be braver, more influential and to provide greater support to our members,” said Victor Adebowale, chair of the NHS Confederation and NHS Providers. He is the soon-to-be inaugural chair of The NHS Alliance.
“As the NHS Confederation and NHS Providers, we have not come together to be bigger: we have come together to be braver, more influential and to provide greater support to our members… The NHS needs collective leadership right now, and I am excited by what The NHS Alliance will deliver for all parts of the health and care system,” he added.
