11.02.15
Circle asks for £9.6m bailout for privately run NHS hospital
The first privately managed NHS hospital has asked for a £9.6m government bailout just six weeks before it is to be handed back to the public sector.
Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire is due to be handed back into NHS hands in March after , Circle, the company outsourced to manage it, said it could no longer cope with rising demand and funding cuts.
Under the terms of its contract, Circle retained the right to end the deal if the amount of money it had to put in to the trust exceeded £5m. At the time of announcing it was pulling out of the contract, in January, Circle said it had already made payments of £4.8m.
The hospital trust’s latest financial statement reveals Circle is expecting to leave behind a deficit of between £7.7m and £12m.
The hospital has now applied to the NHS Trust Development Authority (TDA) for £9.6m in “public dividend capital” funding, and also expects to borrow extra cash from the TDA.
Circle said that despite the bailout plan, it had saved the taxpayer money overall.
“[Our] financial track record at Hinchingbrooke is strong,” a spokesperson said. “We’ve saved the taxpayer £23m, and kept our word on the original bid by making 5% savings each year, as planned. But the landscape changed around us, with high A&E admissions and reduced funding. That’s why the trust now requires further investment. Circle has invested the full £5m required under the contract.”
Shortly after the announcement that Circle would be pulling out of its contract to run Hinchingbrooke, the CQC released a damning report into how the trust was being run. Its services were rated ‘inadequate’ for safety, care and being well-led.
The regulator said that the “the lack of recognition of patient’s privacy and dignity within the A&E and urgent care services, as well as in outpatients, and the number of overnight bed moves within the surgical wards, all require improvement to ensure that patients are cared for appropriately”.
It also noted that a response to call bells in a number of areas, in Juniper Ward, Apple Tree ward and the Reablement Unit for example, was “so poor that two patients of the stated that they had been told to soil themselves”.
In a statement issued shortly after the report’s publication, the TDA confirmed that it would place the trust in special measures. The statement said that despite Circle’s decision to withdraw from the Hinchingbrooke franchise, special measures would “provide the hospital with additional support to ensure the delivery of improvements and high quality patient care on a sustainable basis”.
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