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26
Feb 2024
Harrogate hospital CEO talks car parking, strikes and tackling NHS finances
In the first of a two-part interview with Jonathan Coulter, chief executive of Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust, Mr Coulter gives his thoughts on hospital car parking, NHS strikes and finances.
This month marks two years since Jonathan Coulter took the helm as chief executive of Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust.
Mr Coulter is responsible for two hospital sites, more than 4,000 staff and health services ranging from emergency care to cancer treatment.
The role is a massive undertaking — one which few would relish the opportunity to take up. But not Mr Coulter.
“I have always wanted to work in the public sector,” he says.
In his first interview with the Stray Ferret, Mr Coulter gives his thoughts on his two years in charge of one of Harrogate’s biggest organisations.
Mr Coulter has spent 30 years working for the NHS, 18 of which have been in Harrogate.
He grew up in Oxford and still follows his beloved Oxford United, despite being some 200 miles away.
He left the city when he was 17 and went onto attend the University of Leeds. From there, he has worked around Yorkshire.
A trained accountant, Mr Coulter worked in the NHS in Pontefract, Wakefield and Bradford before joining Harrogate as finance director in 2006.
He could have gone into the private sector, but his ambitions have always been in working for the public.
He says:
NHS strikes
Mr Coulter was appointed interim chief executive in February 2022 following the departure of Steve Russell.
The position was made permanent in May last year after what he describes as a “rigorous” interview process.
His tenure has coincided with a series of staff walkouts amid pay disputes.
Junior doctors on strike on Wetherby Road in Harrogate in March 2023.
Among the most common has been junior doctors, but consultants have also staged strike action over the last 12 months.
Mr Coulter says there have only been two months in the last year without any walkouts.
As we sit in his office at Harrogate hospital on a Thursday morning, another junior doctors' strike looms in just two days time.
He says that the prospect of strike action has become so common that the trust has got used to preparing for it:
The last year has seen the hospital cancel more than 1,500 appointments due to industrial action. What's more, over the last year strikes have cost the trust £3 million in staffing.
Mr Coulter points out that the trust spends a week or so planning ahead of every walkout and then a further week afterwards to rearrange appointments and put staffing in place.
However, he adds that he recognises that those taking strike action are in dispute with the government, not the trust itself:
Parking charges
One of the more controversial decisions taken during his tenure so far was to introduce automated number plate recognition in Harrogate hospital car park.
Parkingeye, which operates car parks across 30 NHS trusts, was brought in to manage the system in September 2023.
At the time, the trust said the ticketless system would help to reduce congestion on Lancaster Park Road.
Over the last five months, The Stray Ferret has received numerous letters and complaints that the company has issued unfair parking fines.
Jonathan Coulter speaking at Harrogate and Knaresborough area constituency committee.
When pressed on whether he recognised the concern over the fines being issued, Mr Coutler said he accepted that there were “teething issues” and that some matters, such as fines at drop-off points, had been raised with Parkingeye.
Mr Coulter added that prices for charges will be reviewed in May and that the contract with the company would also be kept under review.
He said that two areas of parking concern had been raised with him, which were cost and clarity on where patients could park. However, he accepted that some parking charge notices “had been an issue”.
He added:
Tackling a financial deficit
One of Mr Coulter’s tasks as chief executive is to oversee the trust’s finances.
Much of the hospital’s funding comes from taxpayers.
Despite being in one the north’s more affluent areas in Harrogate, the trust faces the same financial pressures as NHS organisations across the country.
It currently faces a deficit of £6.4 million.
Read more:
- Harrogate hospital aims to ‘minimise impact’ of latest junior doctors’ strike
- Harrogate hospital parking firm given five-year contract
However, Mr Coulter says he is confident of getting to break even before the end of the financial year.
Part of this includes reducing the hospital’s reliance on agency staff which recently cost the trust £503,000 in December.
It has also introduced plans to cut out non-essential costs by placing a pause of discretionary spending, such as furniture and staff training, until the start of April.
For Mr Coulter, the bigger financial pressures are yet to come.
In the second part of our feature length interview with Mr Coulter which will be published tomorrow, we ask about RAAC and projects at Ripon Community Hospital.
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