Threatened NHS trust to apply for elite status

The Department of Health and regional NHS bosses have agreed plans for the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals trust, which runs health services in Wakefield, Pontefract and Dewsbury, to submit an application for foundation trust status in April 2014.

The lengthy deadline reflects major problems facing the trust which has set out plans to save £60m in the two years to March 2013 but is still expected to require millions of pounds more to keep its finances balanced.

New hospitals worth £300m built under the private finance initiative were fully opened in Wakefield and Pontefract earlier this year but only two weeks ago Mr Lansley named the trust as one of 22 nationwide on the “brink of financial collapse” owing to the scale of repayments under the scheme.

Trust bosses are drawing up plans for a major reconfiguration of services although the moves are likely to prove highly controversial, with one panel of experts already warning a fully functioning A&E unit in Pontefract is unsustainable in the long term.

All hospital trusts are being required by the Government to attain foundation status or face being taken over by other trusts or private sector managers.

The trust has said the PFI deal had been assessed as affordable but the way it had been structured was increasing budget pressure in the current economic climate.