A TOP manager in Herefordshire has been 'headhunted' to lead a new major team in the Department of Health.

The appointment of Richard Humphries was announced by Health Minister Jacqui Smith this week and he will quit his double post in the county at the end of December.

Mr Humphries is chief executive of Herefordshire Health Authority and Herefordshire Council's director of health, housing and social care.

The council has agreed to release him on a two-year secondment and he will take up his new post on January 1.

Mr Humphries said he had not applied for the new job and felt honoured to be invited by the minister to become chief of the new national Health and Social Care Change Agent team.

As well as a personal honour it was a feather in the cap of a county like Herefordshire.

One of Mr Humphries' main tasks in his new role will be to act as a trouble-shooter in different areas of the country affected by severe bed blocking.

His team of 10 will have £10 million at their disposal in the first year to help bring relief to some of the worst affected areas.

Another important task will be the supervision and development of a series of experimental care trusts in the country which focus on services provided by the NHH and council's social services being joined-up and working together.

Mr Humphries has already had some experience of this in Herefordshire where the council and health trusts were one of the first in the country to go down this route, emphasised when he was given the job as chief of the health authority and at the same time keeping his social services post.

He told the Hereford Times he was very pleased to take on a challenging new opportunity but would be saddened to leave his colleagues.

His new role will take him to London and many parts of the country but Mr Humphries intends that Herefordshire will remain his home.

Dr Mike Deakin, director of pubic health with the heath authority, will take over as acting chief executive. The authority is expected to merge to become part of a larger, regional authority later next year.

Herefordshire Council is likely to appoint a new director of social services in the near future.