NHS trust merger 'will make savings' (From Oxford Mail)

NHS trust merger 'will make savings'

10:00am Thursday 9th September 2010 in

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NHS hospitals in Oxfordshire are planning to form a new ‘super trust’ in a major reorganisation of the county’s hospital services.

The shake-up will secure the specialist services at Oxford’s Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre under the auspices of the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals (ORH) NHS Trust creating one of the biggest providers of health care in the country, say health chiefs.

The reorganisation would produce major savings and cutbacks in senior management and office staff but there was pledge it would not affect services.

Under the plan the different hospitals – the John Radcliffe, Chur-chill, and Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford and the Horton in Banbury would all retain their names, and separate identities.

But the reorganisation would see the NOC disappear as an independent trust, having been in the first wave of NHS hospital trusts created in 1981.

Faced with a likely drop in income and reductions in patient numbers, the NOC, as a small specialist trust, was viewed as especially vulnerable in the current economic climate.

Two years ago a key report found that the NOC trust was no longer financially viable in the face of mounting competition from a new private treatment centre. It is now making small surpluses.

But NOC chief executive Jan Fowler said that despite the turnaround, it would have been difficult to deliver a financially sustainable business model with severe NHS funding constraints ahead.

She said: “The proposed integration seeks to create an organisation with greater resilience in the current economic climate.

“By joining forces, the NOC and the ORH can harness the joint expertise and natural clinical synergies between the organisations.

“I would want to reassure our patients and people of Oxfordshire that they will not be losing any of the services currently provided by the NOC at our Windmill Road site in Headington.”

She said there would be scope for savings and reductions in the workforce.

But any rationalisation was likely to impact on corporate, finance and human resources departments rather than doctors, nurses and other clinical staff.

Sir Jonathan Michael, ORH chief executive, said: “Both organisations recognise that there is a degree of duplication in back- office functions.

“But there isn’t any overlap in front-line clinical services.

“It is better for us to go forward together, rather than as separate organisations.

“The NOC has a proud record and we will be looking to develop its services in the future.

“This is about maximising benefits for clinical services, with benefits in terms of research and training.”

Ian McKendrick, secretary of the Oxfordshire health branch of union Unison, said it would be closely monitoring the implictions for jobs.

He said: “We are already seeing job freezes at the ORH and staff are having to carry the workload of those who have left.

“If there is to be rationalisation, it would make sense to look at management level, where substantial savings could be made.

“You would not need two chief executives, for example. You would not need two boards.”

But he believed a merger with the ORH was the best option for both the NOC and Oxfordshire patients, after earlier fears that NOC services could go to a private company.