The Eric Wright Group has promoted Christine Winstanley to the position of managing director of its health and care business, with a remit of building its property portfolio of care assets and developing its strategic partnerships with NHS Trusts and local authorities.
The move is part of a strategic focus across Eric Wright Group’s property divisions to ensure the right level of skill and experience is in place to drive growth and support effective succession planning. Christine’s tenure of eight years with the Eric Wright Group, first within Partnerships, and then more recently her development of the new healthcare division, has seen her evolve the towards the development of a property portfolio of care assets, which now includes 23 health centres, GP surgeries, care homes and community hospitals.
She has also been instrumental in the formation of One Partnership, which is three public-private partnerships between then Eric Wright Group, Community Health Partnerships (CHP), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Department of Health, and the local health and social care economies across Lancashire and Greater Manchester. One Partnership aims to bring together health, care and housing to help meet the changing healthcare landscape and address issues such as rising hospital stays, re-admissions and bed blocking.
As managing director of Eric Wright Health and Care, Christine will continue to build on this focus of combining housing, residential care and healthcare provision from a single provider, working in close partnership with fellow Eric Wright Group company, housebuilder, Applethwaite, to address the needs of an aging population and ease the strain in the care system.
Amongst the most recent developments delivered by Eric Wright Health and Care under Christine’s leadership will be the transformation of Ashton Town Hall in Ashton in Makerfield into a GP surgery and NHS community health facility. The company also purchased a surplus asset from a local NHS Trust and converted it into a 28-bed residential care home, complete with specialist dementia provision. This has been so successful that this year will see the unit expanded to accommodate a further 24 beds.
Christine explains: “We’ve already built excellent working partnerships across Lancashire and Greater Manchester and, in addition to strengthening those links, my focus as managing director will be to extend our reach across the north, leveraging those relationships and developing in Cheshire, Merseyside and Cumbria.
“We understand the complexities surrounding procurement, commissioning and estates management and have developed a suite of services to help healthcare organisations better manage their assets, release capital and facilitate primary and community care projects.”
Jeremy Hartley, Group managing director at the Eric Wright Group, added: “Christine and her team have developed an excellent reputation for partnering and service delivery across the health and care sectors in the North West. Her appointment as managing director reflects both her achievements and our commitment to investing in Eric Wright Health and Care as a pivotal element of the Group’s property portfolio.
“This is an exciting period of growth for Eric Wright Health and Care and we are looking forward to taking our innovative business model and reputation for expert delivery to the next level under Christine’s leadership as managing director. She will continue to work in partnership with her fellow managing directors across the Eric Wright Group, playing a key role in achieving both divisional and group aims and strategy.”
Eric Wright Health & Care employs nine staff and supports the delivery of clinical services across the North West of England by providing a range of specialist healthcare property services, including capacity modelling, strategic planning, building utilisation, asset disposal and whole system planning advice.
Eric Wright Health and Care is part of the Eric Wright Group and wholly-owned by the Eric Wright Charitable Trust. Profits from the Group are invested back into the Trust and used to support organisations and good causes that focus on young people’s wellbeing, education and training, health, carers and elderly persons services in the North West.