Dr Amanjit Jhund, a medical doctor and former Labour parliamentary candidate, has been appointed chief executive of Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust, marking his first appointment as a formally accountable officer for an entire NHS trust.

Dr Jhund currently serves as hospital site chief at Whipps Cross University Hospital in east London, part of Barts Health NHS Trust, a position he has held since July 2023. He joined Whipps Cross in 2022 as deputy chief executive. His tenure there included overseeing service redevelopments in accident and emergency and maternity, launching a robotic surgery programme, and establishing the Academic Centre for Healthy Ageing in partnership with Queen Mary University of London.

Because Whipps Cross operates under the wider Barts Health group model, Dr Jhund's new role represents a step up in formal accountability. As chief executive of a standalone trust, he becomes directly responsible to NHS England for the organisation's performance, finances, and governance.

Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust serves a population of more than 500,000 people across north Kent. Its main facility is Darent Valley Hospital. Dr Jhund takes over from Jonathan Wade, who had been holding dual leadership responsibilities across the trust while also supporting regional transition work.

The appointment follows a period of organisational deliberation at Dartford and Gravesham. The trust had previously explored a joint group model with Medway NHS Foundation Trust, under which a single chief executive would have overseen both organisations. That arrangement was not pursued. Instead, trust leadership concluded that the distinct operational and financial pressures facing each organisation made separate chief executives more appropriate. Dr Jhund's appointment is therefore the outcome of a conscious decision to restore dedicated, trust-level leadership at Dartford and Gravesham.

Dr Jhund stood as a Labour parliamentary candidate before his NHS career advanced to senior leadership. He has also spoken publicly about his personal experience as a patient at Whipps Cross, where clinical staff diagnosed his pancreatic cancer.

His move is the latest in a pattern that has drawn attention from those watching NHS senior appointments in the South East. The Barts Health group is seeing a trend where several of its hospital site chiefs are being appointed to chief executive positions at other trusts in the region. Simon Ashton, formerly head of Newham University Hospital within the same group, was recently appointed chief executive across the South East Coast and South Central Ambulance Services. The appointments suggest that Barts Health's group model, which gives site chiefs substantial operational responsibility without formal accountable officer status, is producing candidates who are considered ready for full trust leadership.

NHS trusts have faced a compressed pool of chief executive candidates in recent years, following a wave of retirements and a period of consolidation under group and integrated care board structures. Appointments from within large group trusts, where site-level leaders manage complex organisations but remain one tier below full statutory accountability, have become a recognised route into top posts.

Dr Jhund has not yet publicly commented on his appointment or outlined specific priorities for Dartford and Gravesham. A start date has not been confirmed. Whipps Cross has not announced a successor to his current position.

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