Agenda item

Simon Pleydell, Chief Executive Whittington NHS Trust and Steve HItchins, Chair of Whittington Trust were present for this item.

During discussion the following main points were made –

·         Simon Pleydell stated that he had briefed the Council on the defecit position and that Councillor Convery is a member of the Board

·         The position is that there were cost improvements imposed by the Government for 2013/14 and 2014/15 and these targets had not been met

·         The cost pressures on the Trust were significant and there was a recurring defecit of £13M and there had been a reduction in income of £9.2M

·         There had also been a non-recurring cash income of in excess of £4M and funding had reduced from NHS England

·         There had been a reduction in funding for substance misuse and the Trust had lost the contract for Pentonville Prison and the sexual health contract with L,B,Haringey had had its funding reduced by £250000

·         A cost improvement plan had been put in place to reduce the defecit and in 2015/16 cost improvements  of £15M needed to be made to get to a balanced position in year 3

·         The Trust stated that there were also reductions to public health budgets and when bidding for contracts the Trust wished to maintain quality and safety and this must be paramount when determining the viability of bidding for services

·         The Trust were now confident that they had in place a senior management team to deal effectively with the cost improvement strategy and all were now permanent members of staff with a vision to make the Trust succeed and be financially sustainable

·         The focus was to maintain the repertoire of services currently provided by the Trust and in the community in the face of the cost improvement plans that had to be implemented, however there were risks and work is being carried out with GP’s to have more local care

·         Whittington has spare capacity to provide more treatment in a number of surgical specialities and it was hoped to attract more women to use the maternity services

·         In response to a question it was stated that the annual budget of the Trust is £300M and the underlying defecit problem accounted for approximately 10% of the budget and a target of roughly 5% per cent per year had been set to reduce the defecit and in the longer term  a reduction of 2% in the following years

·         It was stated that discussions had been held with the Trust Development Agency recognised that there is now a strong management team in place but the Trust needed time to deliver

·         The Trust stated that there will need to be redundancies of administrative and clerical staff to make the Trust viable in future, however these would not impact on clinical safety

·         In response to a question as to the proposed expansion of the maternity services unit it was stated that a meeting had taken place with the TDA and they wished reassurance that the year 1 cost improvements can be delivered but it was a positive meeting and the Trust continue to be optimistic

·         It was stated that opportunities for savings had been identified and in the past it was felt such opportunities had been missed. There is a need to work in partnership with other health colleagues in view also of the reductions in public health budgets in order to enable residents to access services in a different way

·         Islington has a relatively young population and there is a need to identify and deliver services needed in a different way and match the Local Authority ambition to focus on prevention and early intervention

·         It was stated that discussions had taken place with the Mental Health Trust and the Council as to how mental health services could be delivered more effectively

·         The Executive Member Health and Wellbeing stated that the Council were committed to working in partnership with the Whittington Trust despite the reductions from the Government in public health funding

·         The Whittington Trust stated that the instability of the 3 year tendering service made it difficult for them to plan long term and it could not continue to deliver cost reductions in these contracts and maintain the quality of service required

·         In response to a question it was stated that the turnover rate of staff at the Whittington is 14% compared to 6% in Middlesbrough and this was a reflection of high costs of living and working in London. However a recent recruitment day for nurses had been positive

·         Councillor Nicholls stated that the would e mail his questions to the Whittington Trust for response due to shortage of time

The Chair thanked Simon Pleydell and Steve Hitchins for their attendance