Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust

Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS Foundation Trust operating in the South of England. The trust was created on 1 October 2014 by the acquisition of Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust by Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the first ever take over of one NHS Foundation Trust by another. It runs Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot, Wexham Park Hospital near Slough, Berkshire, and Frimley Park Hospital near Camberley, Surrey.

Background

The Trust serves a population of approximately 800,000, spanning Surrey, NW Hampshire, East Berkshire and South Buckinghamshire. The two acute sites are based at Frimley Park and Wexham Park Hospitals with Heatherwood Hospital serving as an elective base. The combined non-elective activity exceeds 220,000 attendances per annum through the Emergency Departments, ranking it within the top 10 for activity in England. The Trust provides a broad range of secondary care services as well as tertiary primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI), hyper-acute stroke services, vascular surgery, adult cystic fibrosis care, inpatient renal dialysis and plastic surgery.

The Care Quality Commission rated the Frimley Park site as 'outstanding' in 2014, the first hospital to given this grading. Wexham Park and Heatherwood Hospitals were graded 'good' in their last inspections.

Leadership

The Trust is led by a Trust Board consisting of 7 executive and 8 non-executive directors. Pradip Patel has been the Chair since 2016. Neil Dardis has been chief executive (CEO) since March 2018, having succeeded Sir Andrew Morris. The Board acts in a unitary fashion. In addition to the CEO, the executive consists of the medical and nursing directors, finance director, two directors of operations and a director of human resources and facilities. All are full voting members.

The Trust believes in a clinically led model of leadership, with services divided into 10 cross-site directorates, each led by a chief of service and supported by an associate director.

As a foundation trust there is an elected council of governors. In May 2017 the trust decided to reduce the number of governors from 37 to 22, saying the council of governors needed to be more effective.[1]

Development

The Trust secured funding to build both a new emergency centre, as well as an upgraded maternity unit, at Wexham Park, and has plans to build an elective centre at the Heatherwood location [2]. The £10 million maternity unit was opened in January 2018 and the new emergency centre is due for completion in early 2019.

At the time time of the formation of the Trust, the three East Berkshire Clinical commissioning groups stated that they had been asked to provide £11m extra funding to support the trust’s “integration costs” over the next few years, in addition to normal payments for activity.[3]

In March 2015 the Department of Health agreed a package of support to the new Trust: £127.2m of public dividend capital and £59m of loan funding to support rebuilding and refurbishment of parts of the Heatherwood site. It is planned to save £8m by sharing buildings and to make £28m from selling land at Heatherwood Hospital. The merged organisation is expected to run a deficit until 2020-21 and meeting this brings the total cost of financial support for the merger to £328 million.[4]

The Trust has been named by the Health Service Journal as one of the top hundred NHS trusts to work for in 2015. At that time it had 4948 full time equivalent staff and a sickness absence rate of 3%. 89% of staff recommend it as a place for treatment and 77% recommended it as a place to work.[5]

The Care Quality Commission in February 2016 said that the “remarkable” improvement in care at Wexham Park Hospital after the merger was the “most impressive” turnaround it has seen.[6]

The Trust is part of the Frimley Health and Care integrated care system (ICS). It proposes to establish a network of 14 integrated primary and acute care hubs in Farnham, Fleet, Farnborough, Aldershot, Yateley, Surrey Heath, Bracknell, Ascot, Windsor, Maidenhead, and Slough. Each is to be a “single point of access” for social, mental and physical health care. An increase in primary care expenditure of 21% by 2021 is planned, and savings of £65 million anticipated based on workforce changes and a shared electronic care record. These require £20 million more investment than the announced funding of £47 million from the sustainability and transformation fund.[7]

Performance

Four-hour target in the emergency department quarterly figures from NHS England Data from https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/

Historically the Trust has delivered key performance metrics. Like many Trusts, the 4 hour access standard has been more difficult to achieve since 2015.

Frimley Health, accepts staffing is “a concern”, the trust paid locum or agency nurses, doctors and midwives for covering 41,055 shifts in 2016.[8]

However, as of May 2018, the Trust continues to deliver both the 18 week RTT metric and the 62 day cancer standard for its patients.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Outstanding trust cuts public governors by nearly half". Health Service Journal. 3 May 2017. Retrieved 29 May 2017.
  2. ↑ "Four-county Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust officially launched". BBC News. 1 October 2014. Retrieved 1 October 2014.
  3. ↑ "CCG leaders attack 'unjustifiable' funding differences". Health Service Journal. 24 October 2014. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  4. ↑ "FT to receive £328m as part of takeover of neighbour". Health Service Journal. 13 March 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  5. ↑ "HSJ reveals the best places to work in 2015". Health Service Journal. 7 July 2015. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
  6. ↑ "CQC hails merger trust for 'most impressive' ever transformation". Health Service Journal. 2 February 2016. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
  7. ↑ "Frimley STP proposes radical upgrade of primary care". Health Service Journal. 5 December 2016. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  8. ↑ Revealed: scale of hospital staff shortages in top Tory areas The Guardian
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