08.08.14
Monitor ‘disappointed’ by delay in Peterborough & Stamford hospital bidding
Plans to find a ‘business partner’ to run financially struggling Peterborough and Stamford NHS Foundation Trust have been put on hold until March 2015 – a decision that Monitor said it made only “reluctantly”.
The business partner could be either NHS or private sector, but must find a way to help the trust balance the books, which it currently only manages thanks to a £40m Department of Health annual subsidy.
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG says the delay will allow it “to develop a strategic plan for the local health economy”.
Monitor says it has allowed the delay on condition that:
• The trust must take all possible steps to firm up its plans to find a partner from either the NHS or independent sector, so that the tender goes ahead after 31 March 2015;
• The trust must continue to deliver further efficiency savings to help reduce the deficit. It achieved £13m savings in 2013/14 and plans a similar sum this year; and
• Monitor has asked NHS England to help ensure the commissioners are able to deliver an adequate strategic plan for the local health economy on time.
Monitor sent in its own experts last year, on whose advice the trust is basing the decision to go ahead with a partner to run things – as Monitor puts it, “to make better use of the under-utilised estate, develop new services and generate extra income”.
Potential bidders are making clear they would demand a premium on their costs to cover the risk, Monitor says.
David Hill, its enforcement director, said: “We are disappointed by this delay. The public wants NHS resources spent on treating patients, not on propping up the costs of under-used buildings. All the parties in the local health economy signed up to the recovery plan for the trust, but at their request we have reluctantly agreed to a delay. The local commissioners must now act swiftly and decisively so that patients of Peterborough hospital can be reassured about the future of their health services.”
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