Cuts not ruled out by Morecambe Bay health trust bosses (From The Westmorland Gazette)
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Cuts not ruled out by Morecambe Bay health trust bosses
7:10pm Wednesday 4th July 2012 in News
By Steven Bell, Senior Reporter
CRISIS-HIT Morecambe Bay NHS Trust has refused to rule out cutting jobs and services as it aims to tackle a predicted £29m deficit.
The trust yesterday admitted that around £13m of this financial year’s expected shortfall is directly caused by urgent measures it implemented to improve clinical services.
Health regulators Monitor and the Care Quality Commission ordered bosses to make major changes after serious failings in patient care and leadership were found.
Sir David Henshaw and Eric Morton were appointed chairman and interim chief executive respectively to turn around the trust.
A trust spokesman said most of the £13m had been incurred by employing new staff, including recruiting new managers, midwives, doctors, and nurses.
Tim Bennett, director of finance and deputy chief executive, said: “This does not mean we have a substantial debt at the moment. It means that if we do nothing, we could be faced with a signif-icant financial challenge.
“We are seeking help from our commissioners, together with seeking additional NHS funding, to assist the trust manage this period. We are enc-ouraged at the initial response, which will provide the head room we need to develop our plans led by clinicians.”
The trust would not comment on how it would try tackling its deficit, but said plans would be submitted to Monitor in September identifying how changes could be made.
In a letter updating the trust’s governors, Sir David Henshaw wrote: “This doesn’t mean any decisions have been made to close, or remove, any of our services, because any recommended changes from the reviews would be made with input from the public and then full consultation.
“It simply means we have to look at where we can do things differently.”
Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron told the Gazette he would ask the Government to give the trust extra resources, so patients did not see services cut.
“The new management inherited quite a bad situation and it costs money to get things right,” said Mr Farron. If it’s cost them £13m to get the trust back on an even keel, it’s not their fault. Patients shouldn’t have to pay for those various cutbacks and savings that might be painful.”
Mr Farron said while the Government should not be expected to bail out every troubled hospital trust, it should reward those trying to turn things around.
Comments(4)
snuggle-bunny
says...
9:28pm Wed 4 Jul 12
WilliamT
says...
11:48am Thu 12 Jul 12
Board members who approved the dodgy secret Board meetings, the cover-ups of the high mortality rates in each year's so called Quality Account, the hiding of the Fielding Maternity Report, the lies about the Titcombe death etc. are also still there.
You'd better hope they succeed in attracting some slush fund money from the government to keep things out of the news (this comes as extra payments from the PCT and SHA) or things will be dire. The PCT and SHA will soon be abolished, so are a good place to hide dodgy payments injected unheralded into the UHMB balance sheet, because the money is then just written off as a 'terminal expense', rather like the presumed monster payoffs for Halsall and Vaughan, and possibly for personnel director Wilson. The going rate for Chief Execs. (as shown by Mid-Staffs.) is about £1m, which they just hide as chicken-feed in these huge £40m deficits which they hope will just be paid off on the quiet.
WilliamT
says...
11:50am Thu 12 Jul 12
gadgetgadget says...
7:51pm Wed 4 Jul 12
bit of a clue where some of the money has gone ...
"recruiting new managers"
More admin staff then FFS. Cutting services is not the answer, getting them in the right place with the right facilities is. A change in attitudes is required still amongst some at UHMBT - got to get radical instead of carrying on regardless.