Hospital bosses in Brighton are planning a £1 billion merger with a neighbouring NHS trust.
The new organisation would serve Brighton and Hove, Mid Sussex and the coastal stretch of West Sussex from Shoreham to Chichester.
It would have more than 15,000 staff and – when modernisation work is complete – a £500 million new hospital in Brighton offering local health care and serving as a regional specialist centre.
Currently, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) runs the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital and Sussex Eye Hospital, in Brighton, and the Princess Royal Hospital, in Haywards Heath.
BSUH is expected to merge with Western Sussex Hospitals, the NHS trust that runs Worthing Hospital, Southlands Hospital, in Shoreham, and St Richard’s Hospital, in Chichester.
Since April 2017 the two trusts have shared a key leadership team, led by chief executive Dame Marianne Griffiths. Her deputy, George Findlay, is expected to brief staff tomorrow morning.
In the past three years, BSUH has emerged from “special measures”, having been rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in August 2016.
The trust was also placed in “financial special measures” as its deficit soared to more than £70 million.
BSUH, with more than 8,000 staff, has an annual income of more than £500 million a year and is bringing down a deficit that still totals tens of millions of pounds.
Western, with more than 7,000 staff, has an annual income of more than £400 million and in its 2018-19 accounts the trust recorded a surplus of £23 million.
Dame Marianne wrote to staff today (Monday 6 July) and said: “I am writing to update you on the plans for the future long-term working relationship between Western Sussex Hospitals and Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals.
“As we have responded to the covid-19 pandemic the collaboration, mutual support and sharing of expertise between the two trusts has been hugely effective.
“This partnership has enabled us to provide the very best care for our patients while maintaining our focus on staff safety.
“During these exceptional times there have also been significant changes to the NHS landscape, with an emphasis on closer working across health and social care.
“As a result of these changes, and building on the closer working between the trusts, the board has decided to pursue a merger between WSHT and BSUH, creating one, new organisation.
“Last year the trust board’s decision was to explore the options for a group structure, in which the two trusts operated independently alongside each other while remaining under a single leadership.
More reasons why the £500m? Should have been spent on a new Hospital not a new(ly) modernised one somewhere on the outskirts of the City or even at Toads Hole and turned The RSCH into much needed accommodation.
By the time that the 2011/2012 Application came to the Planning Committee, it was long past the time when one should have been made for a Hospital on the by-pass. The Committtee had to go with what was proposed rather than go through another twenty-year process. As it was, the Kemp Town site had to wait some time for the Government funding to emerge when Permission was granted.
This is just another way to cut funding and get rid of Staff, Even i can see that !!
The rsch was always going to come out tops as the haywards heath hospital has slowly been down graded over the years.
Are you talking about St Francis or The Princess Royal?
St Francis Hospital closed a quarter of a century ago.