Heartbeat: Hello my name is… Daren Fradgley
December 10, 2021
This month we welcome a new member of the executive team. Daren Fradgley has recently joined our SWB family as interim executive director of integration.
Daren has worked in the NHS for 28 years and joins us from Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust where in the last two years he was deputy chief executive and then acting chief executive.
We caught up with him to find out more.
“I spent 20 years of my career in the ambulance service where I trained as a paramedic and I still practice today with a clinical speciality in admission avoidance,” he said. “During my time at West Midlands Ambulance Service I worked on the front line in South, Central and West Birmingham before transferring to the Black Country.
“I then moved into a leadership role starting at station level and then director level of which seven years was as an assistant chief officer. My time as a director with the ambulance service saw me work in various areas of the service including operations, data and performance management and the emergency operations centres before finishing in NHS 111, where I led the migration from NHS Direct.
“In 2014 I moved to Walsall Healthcare as executive director of strategy with a brief to build the Trust’s integration offer. This developed into a place based care model called Walsall Together which quickly developed as a virtual organisation in Walsall. Walsall Together is responsible for the smooth running of all out of hospital health services, elements of primary care, adult social care, mental health, housing and the voluntary sector under a single clinical and practitioner management team. This removed barriers between organisations and delivered services closer to people’s homes.”
We asked Daren what attracted him to SWB.
“I am passionate about integrating services and providing the very best care and support as close to patients’ homes as possible,” he said. “Having spent my entire clinical career in a pre and post hospital setting, I strongly believe that good quality place based care linked with partners such as social care, housing and the third sector can deliver better and timelier outcomes for our patients whilst protecting acute and bed based services for those in greatest need.
“Having achieved this in Walsall and other places with the ambulance service I was excited to get the opportunity to come SWB to develop our place based model for the future. A model that is even more important now given the opening of Midland Met which will require thriving clinical and community pathways if it is going to be successful.”
Daren will be accountable for bringing partners together to deliver good quality place based care.
He added: “The Trust has already committed to be the host for this endeavour and therefore we are collectively responsible for the coordination and creating the success conditions for the partners to work on our place based partnership. The offer for the citizens we serve should be the same in West Birmingham as it is in Sandwell so we will need to work hard to stay aligned with other partners in Birmingham. Looking forward, the creation of national policy relating to place based partnerships is moving closer to approval and will see providers take on a wider coordination role with commissioners coordinating population health budgets and addressing the wider determinants of health.”
Daren most looks forward to meeting new people and creating space to hear colleagues’ ideas and bringing them to life. He welcomes listening to your ideas to deliver better quality services closer to home. Drop him a line at daren.fradgley@nhs.net or a direct message on Microsoft Teams. He would also love to visit your service and discuss your ideas and ambitions.
So what does Daren do in his spare time?
“What spare time?” he says. “I was born in Walsall and now live in Wombourne with my partner Helen and have three children aged 24, and 12 year old twins. Our days off are busier than work days – I hate sitting around so we are always exploring somewhere new. I hold a private pilot’s licence and I am passionate about anything aviation. I very nearly became a pilot with British Airways but the NHS grabbed me first, but that’s another story!”
Welcome and good luck in your new role Daren.