Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust published a newsletter saying it had a deficit of £2.5 million and needs £400 million more to redevelop hospitals after selling parts of them.
Charing Cross Hospital's A&E is to be changed as half of it is sold off
The NHS Trust selling-off half of Charing Cross Hospital has come under fire again for quietly announcing a £2.5million deficit and the need for £400m more to redevelop.
In its newsletter released on August 14, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, said at the end of the first quarter of 2014/2015, it had ‘a deficit of £2.5m against a planned surplus of £1.2m’.
The announcement comes just two weeks after the trust’s board rubber-stamped plans to sell 55 per cent of Charing Cross Hospital and to move out many integral services and reduce inpatient beds from 360 to 24 under the Shaping a Healthier Future programme.
Also confirmed were plans to sell 45 per cent of St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington and the entire Western Eye Hospital, in Marylebone, to raise more than £600m to redevelop Hammersmith, St Mary’s and Charing Cross hospitals.
The newsletter states they still need more than £400m to redevelop the sites but did not say where the money would come from.
Imperial plans to double its £39 million a year income from private patients but this would still not cover the amount needed.
Hammersmith MP Andy Slaughter expressed his outrage at the way the Trust has announced the changes.
He said: “This latest failure by Imperial only highlights the way that they have handled the whole process.
“It beggars belief that they have missed their targets by several millions of pounds but still have the funds to hire expensive spin doctors to promote their closure program.
“Once again this just shows that you cannot trust the Tories with the NHS.”
Also announced in the newsletter was an invite for hospital users to talk to with the chief inspector of hospitals on September 2, eight days before Hammersmith and Central Middlesex hospitals’ A&Es close down.
Chief executive of the trust Tracey Batten said in the newsletter: “None of our plans mean cutting back on NHS care – it’s about providing care differently so that people get the right care in the right place at the right time.
“Increasingly, it will not be about how many inpatient beds we have, but how many patients we are able to help keep well and get well through one-stop diagnostic clinics, treatments and surgical procedures provided on a day-case basis and regular monitoring and community-based expertise.
“And when patients do need to come into hospital, they need to get fast access to the very best expertise for their condition.”
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete