NHS Greater Manchester forms new comms team
The newly-formed NHS Greater Manchester has drafted in two experienced PR professionals as it ramps up its communications activity.
Mike Barker and Naomi Duggan will take responsibility for corporate communications, PR, marketing and public engagement for what is now the largest Primary Care Trust in England.
The so-called 'super PCT' was formed last month after the 10 primary care trusts across Greater Manchester were merged to form a single £4.7bn body.
Barker, currently director of corporate affairs at Trafford PCT, has more than 15 years' experience within PR, communications and marketing across the public and private sectors.
He said of his new role: "It is an immensely exciting time to be working in communications within the NHS right now - there’s such a lot of immediate, complex change issues to manage.
“However, tackling these whilst also looking at how we organise the functions currently sitting within 10 individual organisations into a new operating model is a unique personal opportunity which I am relishing.”
Duggan, whose 20-year communications career has spanned the British Coal Corporation, Asda and Oldham Council, joined the NHS in 2008 as director of public affairs at Tameside and Glossop PCT.
She said: "Working across a greater geographic footprint and within an organisation with such a significant size of financial turnover provides real opportunities to think very differently about we handle communications for the NHS in Greater Manchester."
Previously the 10 PCTs in the region had their own communications functions. Barker and Duggan said "they will not rule out" the development of a single, integrated service covering all 10 localities.