Debts will force hospitals to close
pharmafile | December 15, 2011 | News story | Sales and Marketing | NHS, hospitals, king's fund
Around twenty hospitals in England may have to merge or close because of major financial problems, according to a committee of MPs.
A new report by a Commons’ Public Accounts Committee looked at all 113 hospitals in England yet to achieve foundation status.
It found that 78% were tackling strategic issues and two-thirds were facing performance and quality problems, with nearly 40% still needing to strengthen their governance and leadership.
Labour MP Margaret Hodge, chair of the public accounts committee that published the report, said failing hospitals “will be forced into reconfigurations or even mergers”.
Hodge warned that this may address the financial challenges involved, but could leave poorer communities with unequal access to high quality healthcare.
The government wants all hospitals to achieve foundation trusts by 2014, but nearly half of all hospital trusts have not yet achieved this status given the ongoing financial problems.
Hodge said that for the remaining hospitals to become trusts would be a ‘very tall order’.
“Four out of five of the 113 remaining trusts face financial difficulties. Most face strategic challenges, performance issues and governance problems,” she said.
She added that 20 hospitals have declared that they will never make foundation status in their present circumstances, and half of these are in London.
This includes the South London Healthcare NHS Trust, which oversees a group of hospitals – the Princess Royal University Hospital (formerly Farnborough Hospital), Orpington and Beckenham.
London in a ‘shocking state’
Hodge said the picture in London was a ‘particularly shocking state’ and said “nobody has got a grip on [this] long-standing problem”.
This echoes a King’s Fund report published earlier this week, which highlighted the poor performance of London hospitals.
The think tank’s chief executive Professor Chris Ham, said that service changes in London have been delayed as a result of the government’s health reforms.
Health secretary Andrew Lansley said the problems were now being tackled, and told the BBC that the problems trusts were facing had been “swept under the carpet for years”.
He said independent assessments would be carried out on hospitals to identify what was going wrong.
Ben Adams
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