06.01.16
First privately-run NHS hospital could merge with cash-strapped FT
The first NHS hospital to be privately run is considering a merger with neighbouring Peterborough & Stamford Hospitals NHS FT to try to solve both organisations’ “significant financial challenges”.
Hinchingbrooke Hospital, whose operations were outsourced to healthcare company Circle in 2012 but released back into the health system early last year when the deal’s finances became of its, has started working with the Peterborough trust to try to improve the region’s struggling health economy.
In a statement by their chief executives, the two providers said they have teamed up to review what savings can be jointly achieved by “working more collaboratively”, particularly through back office services.
In the coming months, they will also review how they can collaborate clinically to develop a joint clinical strategy and potential new structure – which Huntingdon MP Jonathan Djanogly dubbed “NHS techno-speak at best… but at the very worst it’s weasel words for a takeover” in an interview with the BBC.
From today, both providers have started a “programme of open forums” where staff can pose questions or concerns to their chief executive around the potential merge.
Hinchingbrooke’s chair, Alan Burns, said all options to rescue the trust’s finances were on the table, including a merger: “Because [Peterborough and Stamford] are a foundation trust and we are not, if anything it would be an acquisition not a merger.
“We are looking at making the best use of money without a diminution of services,” he told the BBC.
Burns said the trusts would deliver the proposed outline business case by April.
Hinchingbrooke has faced a number of problems in recent years. In March last year, when a Commons Public Accounts Committee concluded that no one could be held accountable for the consequences of the “poor and inadequate” oversight of the privately-run hospital, the Department of Health admitted that the provider’s severe problems persisted for over a decade.