The board of directors of both Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust and Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will be discussing the next steps in a plan to work more closely in two separate meetings to be held in public in May.
The board of directors at Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust will meet on Monday 23 May at 11am in the Partnership Suite at Hinchingbrooke Hospital where they will discuss their response to an Outline Business Case which has been developed since January 2016 to explore the clinical benefits of working more closely with Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals.
On Tuesday 24 May, the board of directors at Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will meet in the Board Room at Peterborough City Hospital at 1.30pm to consider the same Outline Business Case.
Members of the public and Trust staff are able to attend both meetings.
In a joint statement, the two chief executives of the hospital Trusts, Lance McCarthy of Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust, and Stephen Graves, of Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “In our original timetable for this work, our respective boards planned to discuss the Outline Business Case document in private meetings to be held at the end of April.
“However it is clear that both Trust boards are committed to making their decisions publically on how we progress the Outline Business Case, which is why we have rearranged the meetings for a few weeks later to ensure they can be held outside of the constraints of the pre-election period.
“If the boards of each Trust agree that they want to pursue options 2, 3 or 4, the next steps will be to produce a Full Business Case to set out how the chosen option will be put into operation. Should this be the case, both Trusts are committed to engaging with members of the public to help inform the Full Business Case.”
If a Full Business Case is required, this will be completed over the summer months.
Notes to editors:
The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough health system faces a significant financial challenge, both now and longer term. Local health and social care organisations have been working together in recent months to identify ways we can collectively meet this challenge.
The work undertaken to date has identified six main areas, one of which is Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust exploring the benefits of closer working. As a result, the two Trusts, with support from NHS Improvement, have been reviewing how we could jointly improve outcomes for patients and achieve savings. The details of this work is documented in this Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed by both Trusts' Chief Executive Officers prior to the work commencing.
The outline business case will contain four options for board members at both Trusts to consider in their May meetings. These are:
- Option 1 - Do nothing for now
- Option 2 - Shared back office function - leading and integrating back office and operational services to deliver reduced costs and sustainable services
- Option 3 - As per option 2, plus two boards, one executive team and one operational organisation
- Option 4 - One organisation
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