This Sunday April 8th will mark the first takeover by a foundation trust hospital of a ‘bankrupt’ NHS hospital.
Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust is taking over the nearby Good Hope NHS Trust, both in Birmingham.
A feature of the transaction is that £17.5m of Good Hope’s historic deficit has been turned into public dividend capital on which the Heart of England pays a low interest rate but which is repayable.
A Heart of England Trust spokesman confirmed to News Line that ‘the debt has not been written off, the government has invested equity in the new hospital which means the deficit does not appear in the Good Hope accounts. But it does have to be paid back.’
He said ‘redundancies will be kept to a minimum’.
The takeover comes after Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt gave her approval for Heart of England to ‘take over responsibility’ for Good Hope Hospital.
It will create one of the biggest NHS Foundation Trusts in the country serving more than 1.5 million people.
Public sector union UNISON has given a cautious welcome to the takeover.
Ray Salmon, UNISON Regional Organiser said: ‘Given Good Hope’s historical debts we were concerned about the future for the hospital and staff.
‘The merger sees the debts written off, jobs and services protected and guarantees about the future of Good Hope.
‘Although there will be a small number of job losses, in the circumstances, this is the best option for Good Hope.’
Salmon added that Heart of England had said it would not go ahead with the takeover if it had to take on the debt.
UNISON said it does have concerns about Foundation Status for Trusts and the implications this has for NHS Services.
As a Foundation Trust, Heart of England has freedom to vary health care provision and is moving services onto a commercial footing.
Ray Salmon added: ‘We have been given written guarantees the trust will not withdraw services and we will keep them to those if there are any proposals for service to be cut.’
Salmon told News Line: ‘We were told there were going to be some admin jobs cut.
‘But what the trust did was to freeze jobs for the past six months, when both hospitals have not taken on any staff unless absolutely necessary.
‘As they’ve gone through the work on the merger, anybody whose job was due to be made redundant, they’ve slotted into the vacancies that have emerged over the last six months.’
Hewitt’s decision follows the Board of Good Hope Hospital voting unanimously to combine with the foundation trust in the face of debts heading to £47.5m.
Heart of England Foundation Trust has been managing Good Hope for the last 18 months, during which time it has closed a 33-bed ward, turning it into a ‘flexi-ward, only open ‘when demand is high’, sold off the Social Club, increased car parking charges and reorganised a number of services.
l The British Medical Association yesterday condemned the government’s decision to axe funding for the award-winning BestTreatments website, produced by the British Medical Journal Group, forcing it to charge for what has been a valuable free service, especially to poor and vulnerable patients.
