21 April 2011
The team charged with helping the Trust’s hospitals achieve foundation trust status have published an official notice inviting NHS organisations that may be interested in merging with Epsom, Sutton and St Helier hospitals to come forward.
The move marks a major step in the project and follows the decision by the Trust Board in December that it is unable to become a foundation trust in its current form.
The work is being led by a special Transaction Board which was set up in February to explore and, once agreed, implement alternative options. This is likely to see the Trust’s hospitals demerge and then remerge with other hospitals.
The Transaction Board is led by an independent chair, Jan Sawkins. She said: “The Government’s deadline for all hospitals to become foundation trusts is March 2014. Whilst that’s still three years away, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to make it happen.
“The next step is to find out which organisations might be interested in partnering with the Trust’s hospitals. To do this, they need to complete what’s called a pre-qualification questionnaire. We use this to make sure they meet the basic requirements the Department of Health would expect of an organisation working in the NHS.
“Once the responses have been collated, we’ll be in a position to invite organisations to tender formally. This will take place from June until September, with a final recommendation expected in October.”
Importantly, only NHS organisations have been asked to apply. This follows a decision by the Transaction Board that it would not be accepting expressions of interest from non-NHS organisations.
Jan added: “Following detailed assessment of the risks and benefits of the options open to us, we agreed that we will limit potential partners to organisations within the NHS. As such, this excludes private hospitals and private healthcare providers.
“This option was chosen as it was considered the best route for Epsom, St Helier and Sutton hospitals and would deliver the best outcome for patients, local people and staff. However, it doesn't mean that non-NHS organisations couldn't work with an NHS body on a joint bid, but the NHS organisation would have to take the lead.”
A key part of the work of the Transaction Board is to agree how patients, local people and the Trust’s doctors, nurses and other staff are involved in helping to shape the final outcome. As such, a detailed plan for engaging with people has been developed and is already being implemented.
This includes more traditional initiatives such as open meetings and articles in the media. The project will also use newer ways of communicating, including regular updates on the Trust website and via Twitter and Facebook.
Jan added: “The Transaction Board recognises the importance of keeping patients, local people and staff up-to-date as the project moves forward and we are also committed to involving them in helping to shape the criteria we use to select the final partner/s.
“I’d encourage people to get involved and to keep an eye out on our website and local newspapers as we move forward.
“In addition, we welcome requests for members of the transaction project team to attend meetings of local community groups and other interested parties to talk about the project and to take questions.”
