St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been put into financial special measures by NHS Improvement.

NHS Trusts in financial special measures receive a package of support from NHS Improvement designed to achieve rapid financial improvement, while maintaining or improving their quality.

St George’s is currently forecasting a deficit of £71 million, and the support from NHS Improvement will help the Trust tackle the financial challenges it faces.

The Trust will also receive support from – and be held accountable to – a Financial Improvement Director appointed by NHS Improvement.

Improvement Directors are highly experienced NHS leaders and experts in supporting financial improvement in large organisations like St George’s.

Sir David Henshaw, Interim Chair at St George’s, said:

We are taking steps to reduce our financial deficit, whilst also tackling the long-standing and systemic problems the Trust faces. The problems we’ve identified are significant, but we are making progress.”

“However, our financial deficit is not decreasing as quickly as we would like, and we will continue to work with NHS Improvement on our cost improvement plans for the coming year.”

“We have already reduced the use of agency staff, and have introduced better coding systems to ensure we bill properly for activity undertaken – a systemic problem at the Trust for a number of years.”

“We are also making much better use of operating theatres and outpatient areas, and our plans for the coming year will deliver further improvements in this regard. But we need to do more, and the appointment of an Improvement Director for finance will help us in our efforts to further address the challenges we face.”

St George’s is currently in special measures for quality, following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in June last year. The Trust was rated Inadequate when the CQC published its report in November.

St George’s was recently joined by a Quality Improvement Director and a Financial Improvement Director from NHS Improvement who are both helping the Trust to improve the quality of services we provide for patients, and our financial position.

You can see a copy of the Financial Improvement Notice from NHSI here.


 

 

Notes to editors

For more information, please call 020 8266 6128 or email Chris Rolfe, Associate Director of Communications (chris.rolfe@stgeorges.nhs.uk).

St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of the largest healthcare providers in the UK. Its main site, St George’s Hospital – one of the country’s principal teaching hospitals – is shared with St George’s, University of London, which trains medical students and carries out advanced medical research. As well as acute hospital services, the trust provides a wide variety of specialist and community hospital based care and a full range of community services to children, adults, older people and people with learning disabilities. These services are provided from Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton, 11 health centres and clinics, schools and nurseries, patients’ homes and Wandsworth Prison.