On 3 January 2012, the Trust Board of Directors will be celebrating the launch of the new Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust with visits to teams both sides of the border and an official cake-cutting with staff and partner colleagues in both counties.

The new Trust is the result of a merger between Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Suffolk Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust. It will cover an area stretching King’s Lynn to Felixstowe and serve a population of some 1.5m people.

Chief executive Aidan Thomas said: “The merger of our two trusts gives us real opportunities to develop new services which we would not have been able to do if we had remained as two trusts. For example, we are looking at developing inpatient services for under-18s who currently have to travel out of the county for mental health hospital care. Our larger size means we could provide that service closer to young people’s families.

“Both counties have examples of excellent service, which we can extend to the other. All round, this is good news for our clinical services and the people who use them.”

The merger was first proposed almost two years ago. Since that time, staff in the two trusts have been working together on the application, gaining approval from staff, GPs and MPs in both counties, primary care trusts, the strategic health authority and – finally – the independent NHS Foundation Trust regulator Monitor and the Secretary of State for Health.

Mr Thomas added: “It’s been a long process and, quite rightly, a challenging one as we and Monitor need to be satisfied that the merger will be in the interests of our service users and of the taxpayers. We identified many benefits to the merger, which we will now start to deliver to the people of Norfolk and Suffolk.”

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust provides inpatient and community mental health services for people of all ages in both counties, with the current exception of younger people’s inpatient services. Drug services are provided in Norfolk, while alcohol services are provided throughout. Learning disability services and eating disorder services are provided in Suffolk.

The chief executive is Aidan Thomas, who has been the substantive chief executive for the former Norfolk trust since October 2009 and the interim chief executive for the Suffolk trust since March 2011.

The chair of the new Trust is Maggie Wheeler, the previous chair of Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust.

The Trust’s new website will be at www.nsft.nhs.uk, although the sites of both previous trusts are still available.