03.05.17
Major £27m Manchester hospital merger plans still carry ‘inherent risk’
Plans worth £27.2m to integrate services between three Manchester hospitals and allow care to be better optimised for patients still have serious risk attached to it, a report has stated.
In the document released last week by the GM Health and Social Care Partnership (GMHSCP) board, costings behind the Single Hospital Service (SHS) plan to bring together University Hospital South Manchester FT (UHSM), Central Manchester Foundation Trust (CMFT) and North Manchester General Hospital into a co-ordinated set of services were outlined.
Funding for the integration from the GM Transformation Fund was approved on 12 April this year, but the GMHSCP found that though the investment is aligned well to the GM Strategy, the level of risk behind the plans was still high.
Parts of the investment were in good shape, including its leadership, with the document stating: “A senior, capable programme management team has been up and running since Sept 2016.”
On top of that, the report praised health leaders for their work getting input into the design of the fund from the public through various advisory and working groups.
But it found that the level of estimation is high across cost and benefit categories, and there is an “inherent risk” of over/understating benefits. Additionally, any agreement to fund must be made in the context of incentives to reduce costs and maximise benefits adopting an ‘open book’ principle at all times.
The report also called for further work to be done on aligning the clinical services strategy element of the SHS proposal. Effort was also needed to engage and align with work already in progress in the North-East Sector to properly integrate care.
“The scale and nature of the financial ask and the findings outlined require a pragmatic approach to agreeing the quantum and source of funding to support both the transaction and the transformation costs to deliver the SHS programme,” the report explained.
It was noted that the Transformation Fund Oversight Group recommended a substantive investment of £27.2m (with a maximum envelope of £42.52m) over four years for the first and major phase of the Manchester SHS programme, covering the proposed merger of CMFT and UHSM.
The news follows bidding opening for providers to deliver services for Manchester’s enormous £6bn integrated LCO contract.
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