Published: 24 January, 2013
EXCLUSIVE by TOM FOOT

BOARDROOM bosses last night (Wednesday) rubber-stamped the sale of half of the Whittington Hospital.

The drastic measures will see six NHS-owned blocks in the north of the Highgate site shut and sold on the private market.

The sale, which will change the face of one of London’s best-known hospitals, will see:

• inpatient wards closed and dozens of beds for the elderly and new parents axed;
• all NHS staff accommodation – including more than 70 rooms and flats for nurses and social workers – closed and sold; and
• births at the hospital “capped” at 4,000 a year to save money.

Critics last night reminded officials of the massive march and public protest, partly organised by the New Journal and its sister paper the Islington Tribune, against the closure of the hospital’s accident and emergency department and maternity unit in 2010.

It was suggested that the fresh sell-off plans ran against the spirit of commitments given then to preserve the hospital as the community wished.

The plans, detailed in a 102-page, five-year, board-level document, “encapsulates our corporate view of the world”, according to its author, director of estates and facilities Philip Lent. His report recommends that all “services on the main site that do not directly contribute to the corporate objectives shall be considered and, where agreed, discon­tinued”.

Approving the change yesterday, chairman Joe Liddane said: “We can’t not do this. If we sit still, we would be going backwards.”

The decision comes on the back of proposals to axe 350 staff and a controversial reorganisation led by the former car parts company, Unipart, which claimed the jobs of 22 medical secretaries this week.

One staff member told the New Journal that the secretaries had been classed as “wastage” and warned of a brutal management style that valued cost above patient care for the first time in the NHS.

Many of the changes are driven by a need to balance the hospital’s books before an application to become a Foundation Trust can be successful.

The trust needs to save £4.8million by March, when it submits its application to Monitor, the regulator of foundation trusts. The government has advised hospitals they should seek foundation status or risk being taken over.

The “estates strategy” is to sell off £17million worth of buildings in the north half of the hospital’s huge site in Highgate. Some “essential services” would be transferred to refurbished buildings in the south half of the site, the report says. The majority of the funds raised will be used to refurbish maternity services at the hospital.

The A&E unit – which faced closure in 2010 – would not be threatened by the downsizing. Nobody at the hospital has forgotten how thousands marched against that proposal. The New Journal later won an award for its coverage of the campaign.

Shirley Franklin, who led the campaign against the A&E closure as chairwoman of Defend Whittington Hospital Coalition, said: “We need the hospital for our health needs. We don’t just need the A&E, we need full hospital services to meet needs locally. This is to do with the cuts – we are still paying our NI and taxes and paying for our health service that is being decimated.

“We would like to work with the health unions to oppose these cuts.”

The changes would mean the closure of Murray ward – with 19 beds for post-natal care – Betty Mansell women’s health ward, which opened in 2006 and is named in honour of a long-standing Whittington gynaecologist who died in 2004.

Cloudesley and Meyrick – stroke rehabilitation wards for the elderly – would also shut if the estates strategy is implemented.

The report says: “The area to the north of the main building is the easiest to release for disposal or to vacate to create space for other revenue-generating departments.”

The report says that “from 2016, all on-site residences will be closed”. This includes the sale of six blocks, including Grade II-listed Jenner Building, where newborn babies and parents go after giving difficult births.

The blocks include 34 nursing homes, 18 rooms for on-call staff, 11 two-bedroom flats and a doctor’s flat.

The report says that the “institutional nature of the nurses’ homes is not appropriate for modern residential provision”.

Whittington Education Centre – the training centre for postgraduates – would be moved into a boiler room on the main site.

The physiotherapists’ block would be moved to Finsbury Health Centre in Clerkenwell. A sensory garden, opened last year, would be sold.

The “disposal value” is estimated at £17million with the trust’s total assets valued at £118million.

In a move toward “paperless working”, 90 per cent of paper records, letters and notes will be digitalised.

The hospital intends to use a digital system run by Dictate IT, a company set up and owned by GPs in Camden and Islington. The firm sends doctors’ voice-recorded notes to India for transcription. It will be used to replace the work of 22 medical secretaries, made redundant this week from a pool of 40.

The medical secretaries have been axed as part of a new system recommended by Unipart. The former car parts company has been paid £500,000 to find savings at the hospital, but a report released this week said the cuts had produced “lower savings than were initially scoped”.

The new system, due to take effect in March, will mean all patients waiting in the main entrance reception before being called up to wards. The estates strategy includes a refurbishment of the main reception.

One of the dismissed medical secretaries told the New Journal that top consultants had already started leaving the hospital, adding: “Some of my colleagues are quite old. They have got no chance of getting another job outside. It is all very sneaky and very depressing. We don’t feel like coming in.”

The hospital has a turnover of £277million and more than 4,000 staff.

>>NEW JOURNAL COMMENT: Emergency action is needed to save the Whittington (click here)