News Release
The Chief Executive of Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Dr Frank Harsent has begun further discussions with staff, Governors and the Health Community and Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee about meeting future challenges and continuing to deliver high quality care for patients.
The whole health community has been working on how to achieve the vision for the future of the NHS since the publication of the Government White Paper in July last year (Equity and Excellence – Liberating the NHS).
Last Autumn, during initial discussions with health partners, clinical staff, patients and community partners, the Trust and whole health community gave its view that in order to maintain the quality of services and live within its means financially, there would need to be a radical and continuing shift in the way care is provided in Gloucestershire, with a greater emphasis on caring for people close to home where this is right and safe for the patient.
Across the county, the feedback from staff, community partners, patients and the public has been largely supportive of bringing care closer to home, making sure that within our acute hospitals, the Trust can concentrate on making best use of specialist skills to care for those who are seriously unwell as well as ensuring that patients receive the right services at the right time in the right place.
In December the Department of Health published the National Operating Framework for the NHS which set out in more detail our priorities.
The Operating Framework supports the redesign of services, and in particular, the concept of care closer to home. It also introduces a number of financial incentives to move in this direction as quickly as possible.
The impact in the county of the National Operating Framework will be felt first within Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which provides acute services from the county’s large specialist hospitals.
The Trust has calculated that it will need to make efficiency savings of 4% which amounts to around £18million in the year to March 31st 2012.
For many years now, all NHS organisations have made annual efficiency savings. In the financial year 2009/2010 this Trust achieved savings of £24million and in the current year (ending March 31st 2011) the Trust is confident that it will achieve savings in the region of £29 – 30million.
Dr Frank Harsent, Chief Executive, said: “We have a strong track record of delivering savings year on year and introducing more efficient working practices. We have done this whilst keeping our focus on the top priority of high quality patient care and supporting the increasing shift towards community provision when this is right for the patient.”
Within the Hospitals Trust, which has a turnover of around £420million and employs around 7,400 people, approximately 70% of costs are comprised of staffing. This inevitably means that in order to achieve further efficiency savings of £18 million the Trust will need to fully explore future staffing arrangements within the Hospitals Trust and work constructively with colleagues across the wider health community.
Dr Harsent said: “Based on our current predictions and on the scale of change and efficiency savings required, I believe that we will require a reduction in the number of posts in our Trust by several hundred.
“We hope to achieve the majority of these changes through a combination of natural turnover, including retirements, and the potential for some roles to be transferred to other organisations in the health community – reflecting what I have said about the continuing shift towards community based care.
“At present we do not know which posts are affected or exactly how many, but over the coming weeks and months we will be working very closely with staff side colleagues, our health community partners and individual teams and members of staff to make the most appropriate decisions about how to achieve these savings, in the most timely fashion.
“Within the Hospitals Trust, our stated position remains as before that we will do everything we can to avoid redundancies, in particular compulsory redundancies. Safety and quality of care will remain our prime considerations and we will ensure that we always maintain the right staffing levels to deliver that, even if we have to recruit in some areas of service to do so. Our priority will be on protecting front-line services.”
This week the Trust has been talking to staff representatives, partners across the health community, Foundation Trust Governors, local MPs and the Health Community and Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee about the actions required to meet the Trusts efficiency savings. During discussions with staff the Trust will be drawing on their expertise to identify efficiencies which staff believe could make a difference.
In addition, in the Spring the health community will be resuming a conversation with patients, the public, staff, Governors and interested groups, talking about some of the outline options for bringing about the radical shift in healthcare in the future.
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For more information please contact Yvonne Pirso, Associate Director of Communications, Tel: 08454 224 733 or Yvonne.pirso:glos.nhs.uk