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Hospital trust bid on hold
THE credit crunch has forced Whittington Hospital to abandon its long-held ambition of becoming an independent trust.
The Archway hospital’s chief executive, David Sloman, said that “uncertainty” in the economy meant the board had to suspend its application for foundation trust status.
He added: “It does not take a genius to see that we are entering a radically different economic environment. This will have an inevitable impact on public services. To what extent is hard to quantify.
“When we started putting our application together 18 months ago there was not that risk. That is why we have decided it was time to take a sensible pause – our model was not sustainable under the new financial regime.”
Foundation trust status allows hospitals to manage their own finances free from control of central government. Mr Sloman said: “This hospital has always believed on a philosophical level that we could be more accountable to our community if we became a foundation trust. It brings with it a greater freedom to follow through with our core values. But in this climate you have to ask if those freedoms would still exist.”
Mr Sloman warned that the funding Whittington receives for being a London hospital is being cut.
“We were told at Christmas that our level of support was going to drop from 37 per cent to 27 per cent,” he said. “That is a big, big hit.” |
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