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Manchester single hospital trust endorsed by council

Proposals for Manchester’s three central hospitals to be united in a single trust have been approved by the city council’s Health and Wellbeing board, with cautions that the process should involve patients and staff.

The committee’s decision means that Pennine Acute NHS Trust, Central Manchester University Hospital NHS FT and University Hospital of South Manchester NHS FT will produce an initial assessment of the implementation process and the timescales required.

Sir Jonathan Michael, who produced the initial proposal, said the assessments should be returned within six weeks.

“There is an enormous change programme that you’re embarking on, and maintaining pace is really important,” he said.

He also said the single trust was preferable to the status quo and alternatives such as increased joint contracting.

“In my view, the creation of a new, single organisation would provide the greatest level of clarity in terms of responsibility for accountability and leadership,” said Sir Jonathan.

He added the benefits of the single trust included improving quality of patient experience, workforce, financial and operational efficiency, training and education and research opportunities.

Sir Jonathan also said the consultation should identify “early wins” that could be implemented as soon as possible. He also called for a formal statutory consultation to be part of the process, since it had not been so far.

The chairs of the three hospital trusts said they welcomed the proposals, but warned that it was important to engage staff and patients.

Jim Potter, chair of Pennine Acute NHS Trust, said: “Organisational change in itself won’t make this happen. We’ve got to be patient-centred and clinically-led.”

Steve Mycio, chair of Central Manchester NHS FT, added that the hospital was already developing a “very good dialogue” with HR managers and trade unions.

And Barry Clare, chair of the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS FT, said: “We recognise a lot of our employees will be nervous about the changes and a lot of our patients will be keen to understand what it means.”

He said the hospital was developing a communications plan for the changes.

However, Mike Wild, voluntary and community sector representative on the board, said more emphasis on patient involvement than communication plans was needed.

“Communication and consultation are forms of broadcast,” he said. “This is about actually co-producing.”

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