Hospital trust must cut £57m in 5 years (From Surrey Comet)

St Helier Hospital must cut £57m in 5 years

9:45am Thursday 9th February 2012 in Wimbledon By Sophia Sleigh

St Helier Hospital must cut £57m in 5 years

The extent of the cuts St Helier hospital faces have emerged this week with cuts of up to £57m expected.

South-west London’s four main hospital providers must deliver £370m cuts by 2016-17.

Of that total, St Helier must save £57m and Epsom General must save £30m.

The rest will be made up by St George’s, Kingston, and Croydon University hospital.

This means a 24 per cent reduction in spending for all the hospitals.

The NHS Better Services, Better Value review is overseeing how this financial challenge facing the NHS in south-west London will be carried out.

St Helier Hospital suffered a severe blow last week after St George’s, in Tooting, withdrew its bit to run it.

St George’s said it was pulling out due to financial challenges and the uncertainties surrounding the outcome of the review.

Last week, Siobhain McDonagh, MP for Mitcham and Morden, accused doctors leading the review of overstating the need to move services from hospitals into the community.

She said they had contributed to the collapse of a planned merger and left huge questions over St Helier’s future.

This week she said figures showed rising demand for accident and emergency and maternity services at St Helier and its neighbouring hospitals.

She said: “The review is about money. If you are planning to take £40m out of St Helier you seriously undermine its viability.”

Matthew Hopkins, the trust’s chief executive, said nationally the NHS needed to save £20bn in productivity improvements by 2015.

However, he said it was wrong to jump to conclusions about the future of St Helier Hospital and the services it provided.

He said the hospital was popular and the trust had major plans in place to spend more than £219m redeveloping it.

No recommendations have yet been made about the future shape of services in south-west London.

A meeting of the St Helier transaction board took place on Tuesday, February 7.

Health bosses met to consider how to rekindle the hospital’s bid for foundation status, which was thought to be unachievable through its current partnership with Epsom Hospital.

St Helier has been given a six-month extension on their deadline and should become a foundation trust by September 2014.