Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust has completed the acquisition of North West Boroughs Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and will now provide an enlarged range of mental health and community health services across Merseyside, Cheshire and the North West region.

As of 1 June 2021, staff and services became part of Mersey Care after approval for the transaction was given by regulators NHS England and NHS Improvement and the executive boards of both trusts.

The two trusts have been working together since 2019 to share resources and jointly provide the best quality healthcare across the footprint of both trusts. Following detailed internal discussions, it was decided to bring services together into a larger Mersey Care, which health bosses believe will be better for patients, service users, carers and staff across a larger footprint.

Mersey Care says that the most significant benefit for the two organisations coming together is that it presents opportunities to make sure high quality, integrated physical and mental health services are provided across a much larger geographical footprint, strengthening the commitment to improve the health of the communities served, meet the growing demand for out of hospital services and increasingly provide care closer to home.

Services including specialist inpatient and community services that support mental health, learning disabilities and children’s and young people’s mental health services (CAHMS) transfered to Mersey Care. Other services that moved over, alongside just over 3,000 members of staff from NWBH, range from physical health to perinatal services and services for older people.