East Lancs hospitals to delay bid for foundation status

3:10pm Thursday 25th December 2008

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FOUNDATION status has been delayed for East Lancashire’s hospitals as bosses battle with money problems and overcrowded emergency rooms.

East Lancashire Hospitals Trust was set to be granted foundation trust status by February, but the emergency department at the Royal Blackburn Hospital has been reaching breaking point and the trust is struggling to fill a £2 million hole in its accounts.

Now, after meeting health minister Ben Bradshaw, health chiefs said they had decided to defer their application to the government, and are not expecting to gain foundation status until October.

Councillors welcomed the move, saying it would give the trust “time to get its house in order.”

Foundation status would give the trust the flexibility to make its own money through commercial ventures and private investments, but would mean it would no longer be able to get free cash bailouts from NHS East Lancashire and NHS Blackburn with Darwen.

The two primary care trusts have already handed the trust almost £1 million this year, with another big cash boost of up to £2 million planned.

The extra cash has been spent on a new temporary theatre at Burnley and more emergency department beds to help deal with a 14 per cent increase in patients across East Lancashire needing emergency care, but there have also been large overspends on surgery and agency staff budgets.

The trust is set to miss its statutory target of 98% of emergency patients being seen within four hours.

Trust chief executive Marie Burnham said: “I felt that based on our performance to date we were unable to give the full assurance needed in terms of sustained delivery of the four hour maximum wait target measured in our Emergency Department and Urgent Care Centres.

“Therefore, the delivery of financial balance in the current financial year is difficult because of the extra investment we have had to put in place to support the delivery of the four hour target.”

She added that elections to the foundation trust board of governors would still go ahead, with a shadow board to be formed in January.

Burnley councillor Darren Reynolds, a candidate in the election and campaigner for the return of full A and E facilities to his home town, said: “I didn’t really believe they were ready for foundation status, and I am glad the hospital bosses have admitted that.”

Chairman of Blackburn with Darwen’s health scrutiny committtee Roy Davies added: “Deferral is a good thing. It gives the hospital and the PCTs time to get their houses in order and sort these things out.”