No end in sight for NHS trust’s financial woes

Officials at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust yesterday revealed full maternity services at Dewsbury and District Hospital face the axe, while A&E at Pontefract Hospital is set to be staffed by a private firm overnight.

Interim chief executive Stephen Eames said detailed forecasts had been carried out up until 2017 and the trust would not be in a financial position to gain foundation status, as required by Ministers, “in the foreseeable future”.

He said: “What it boils down to is that the financial position over that period of time, the long-term financial plan, doesn’t allow us to get to a position where we can achieve financial balance.”

Two options are being considered for services at Pinderfields, Pontefract and Dewsbury hospitals, where inefficiency is contributing to £100,000 losses every day.

The trust is forecast to run up a £26m deficit in the year to March even after savings of £24m.

The first option involves consolidating children’s and consultant-led maternity services in Wakefield, changes to urgent care at Pontefract and changing the way surgery is organised across the three hospitals.

The second, more radical option involves bringing all emergency and complex services to Pinderfields and increasing the level of planned and diagnostic services at Dewsbury and Pontefract.

Both involve downgrading Dewsbury’s maternity service to a midwife-led unit. The hospital would keep its consultant-led A&E unit under the first option, but the second option would see it downgraded to an urgent care centre for minor injuries and illnesses.

Pontefract’s A&E department, which will remain an urgent care centre under both options, will be staffed overnight from September after its closure between 10pm and 8am sparked outrage last November. The overnight service has been contracted to private healthcare provider Nestor Primecare, it was revealed yesterday.

Mr Eames said the reorganisation of services was necessary to ensure they are clinically and financially sustainable.

He said: “We have two options to consider. The first looks at doing what we must do to make services clinically safe and sustainable, whilst the second goes further – radically re-organising services across our hospital sites to make the best use of resources.

“All of this work is essential to ensure people in these communities have really good healthcare, in the most appropriate place, at the time that they need it.”

Both options would take place alongside plans to step up care in the community to reduce the need for hospital treatment.

Mr Eames insisted there was no preferred option and said the proposals would go through detailed discussions before a formal public consultation in January.

The future of the trust itself will also be discussed over the next three months since it looks likely to miss the government’s 2014 deadline to become a self-governing foundation trust.

Mr Eames said options included working more closely with other NHS providers.

Plans would be worked up in the next three months but it remained to be seen how the trust would be configured although splitting it up would not be his preferred option, he said.

Mike Potts, chief executive of NHS Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield District, said: “The decision on foundation trust status has absolutely confirmed that staying the same is not an option. It has also reminded us that finance and quality of care are inextricably linked.

“We are now working with the trust to find the best way forward. We are aiming to do this as quickly as possibly to minimise uncertainty and are committed to making sure local people have the opportunity to give us their views.”