An update for the new year from Professor Mark Freestone
Mark Freestone “A Happy New Year to all of you and I hope you had a relaxing break and are enjoying the return to your studies. 2025 promises to be a critical year in the Trust’s recent history and a chance for us to create a sustainable future for our training and education programmes, and I wanted to update you on our progress towards merging the Trust.
As you all know, the Trust has been seeking a merger partner to ensure our services are sustainable and at present we are actively pursuing a merger with Central and Northwest London NHS Foundation Trust, supported by NHS England. We believe that this partnership will bring significant benefits to the new shared organisation, the national training offer for social work, psychology and psychotherapy, the NCL Integrated Care System and for our local populations. For our students, it would significantly increase the availability of placements and brings access to new specialist education buildings.
As a reminder, this change should make very little difference to your day-to-day experience as students at the Tavistock and Portman. We are committed to continuing to use The Tavistock Centre to host our education, training and clinical services, and our relationships with the University of Essex and the University of East London to validate our degrees would also not change.
The Trust Board believe a merger would help us retain and grow the best of what we offer. The merger creates the opportunity to put Tavistock and Portman services on a long-term clinically and financially sustainable footing, providing the foundation for innovation and further improving care and education to our patients, students and communities. Equally we expect Tavistock and Portman staff and students to be proud of their culture and history. Any merger decision will be based on a commitment to protect the Tavistock and Portman’s identity and legacy.
I am also very aware of the frustrations many of you have experienced with our estate and teaching rooms in recent months, and since I joined the Trust in June I have been aware of where our estate and our procedures are not serving us well. I will be leading a piece of work with the Trust’s Chief Nursing Officer, Clare Scott, in the coming weeks to ensure our estate is used fairly and is fit for purpose.
We will be continuing to seek student support and input into the merger and our estates work and giving our students the opportunity to ask questions and get more involved, if you wish to. Among other opportunities, we will be running Dean’s Forum events again in March, so you have a chance to discuss the merger and other important issues with myself and the DET Senior Leadership team.
I very much look forward to meeting some of you online and in person over the coming weeks to discuss our Trust and its future.”
Professor Mark Freestone
Dean of Postgraduate Studies and Chief Education and Training Officer