A major shake-up of how Liverpool’s NHS hospitals operate has been announced today. The changes are expected to bring the city’s five acute and specialist trusts closer together and could see a controversial move to take the city’s women’s hospital a step further.
The city’s five trusts include Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – which operates the Royal Liverpool and Aintree sites – Liverpool Women’s Trust, The Walton Centre, Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital and The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre. Liverpool are quite unique in terms of the number of individual trusts they have and there are ongoing discussions about bringing the various centers closer together.
In 2022, the ECHO reported that talks had begun to merge all the city’s hospitals into a £2bn supergroup, which could further lead to a full merger. Last year we reported on angry protests against plans to link the city’s beloved women’s hospital to an existing acute site such as The Royal.
The future of The Women’s was one of a number of topics highlighted in a Liverpool Clinical Services Review published in January last year. The review identified a number of potential changes in working methods to enhance and improve patient care.
One of them was announced today via a joint statement from the chief executives of all five separate Liverpool NHS Trusts. In the statement, trust leaders set out plans for a closer collaborative working arrangement on issues of governance and financial management across different city trusts, which they say, “will improve the quality and outcomes of patient care by building on sustainability. Health Care Systems.”
The joint statement said: “For a long time, Liverpool’s senior acute and specialist trusts have worked collaboratively for the benefit of patients. We are committed to improving the timeliness and effectiveness of services and the quality of care for the benefit of the people and communities we serve.
“Working collaboratively, we are delivering improvements in patient care today, for example the stroke pathway service between Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and The Walton Center NHS Foundation Trust, cancer pathways across all trusts and improved diagnosis times across the city.
“The joint committee of the five trusts and joint board of directors for Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust is the next stage of our collaboration. It will help streamline decision-making and develop further collaboration opportunities by identifying challenges with demand for services, workforce capacity and financing that affect the quality of patient services. In this way, sustainable healthcare systems can be created for the future to improve patient care and outcomes in the years to come.
As stated in the statement, the new plans include the establishment of a new joint committee between the five Liverpool NHS trusts, with the chairmen and chief executives of all five trusts sitting on the committee. NHS leaders hope this will lead to “more streamlined decision-making” and the ability to “collectively manage the financial situation across trusts”. Earlier this year the ECHO reported that Merseyside health chiefs had warned of a dire financial situation, costing the region’s NHS £270m more. One local health chief described the current situation as “the most challenging situation since the creation of the NHS”.
The focus of the Joint Committee will be to meet in shadow form (without formal authority) in September 2024 to establish new governance arrangements and implement them formally (with decision-making powers) by April 2025. Detailed distribution plans are being developed over the next few weeks.
As well as the joint committee, the other key announcement made today involves a new joint board of directors for Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust. The two trusts are working to set up a shared board later this year.
Leaders say the move supports Women’s Hospital’s “long-stated” ambition to align itself with a larger acute trust to support clinical risk management. Under the plan, an executive managing director will be appointed to lead Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust, who will sit as a voting member of this joint board of directors.
The move is likely to prompt further suggestions that Liverpool Women’s Hospital could eventually be on a path to co-location with the city’s main trust – most likely at the new Royal Liverpool Hospital. Asked about the prospect last year, Dr Lynn Greenhalgh, medical director of the Women’s Hospital, said: “If you ask my opinion as medical director of Liverpool Women’s, we should co-locate with an adult acute site. But there is. This is a process that needs to be done. And we fully support our ICB colleagues and recommendations, we will go through that process, if the process finds something different, but in my opinion, that’s what I believe.
NHS leaders say the joint board plan will “ensure parity with other sites, while retaining Liverpool Women’s Hospital’s identity and voice and influence at board level”. With more detailed plans in the future, the new governance arrangements will not affect the delivery of services at various hospital sites, according to those bringing about the changes.
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