Who can become a Member?

We currently have a membership of over 7000 people, but would like to increase this. We want our membership to be representative of the diverse community we serve in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and socio economic background.

Members can contribute effectively to the Trust’s development. We want our members to have a say in how the Trust is run and help build on our good track record of user and carer involvement.

Members can:

• Help influence decisions about proposed changes to services and future plans for the development of the Trust

• Support the work of the Trust and receive regular information such as members newsletters

• Stand for election to the Council of Governors.

Our membership is made up of our staff, people from partner/ stakeholder organisations and the general public.

There are two types of member:

• Public members

• Staff members

Public

The Trust has decided to make the public membership open to anyone who is over the age of 16 and is resident in:

• Chelmsford Borough

• Maldon District

• Braintree District

• Witham area

• The broader region of the County of Essex

Public constituency elections will take place to represent eh constituencies of Chelmsford, Braintree, Witham, Maldon and wider Essex in order to appropriately represent the Trust’s core geographical patient population.

Staff

We want as many staff as possible to be involved in the direction of their Trust. Anyone who is employed by the Trust under a contract of employment with the Trust may become a member provided:

• You have a contract of employment which has no fixed term or has a term of at least 12 months

• You have been continuously employed by the Trust under a contract of employment for at least 12 months

To ensure that all areas of our workforce have representation on the Council of Governors, the staff constituencies have been sub divided into:

• Medical and dental

• Nursing and midwifery

• Other