Chairman Joe Liddane: 'move to push care into neighbourhood centres would guarantee the hospital’s survival'

Published: 7 February, 2013
by TOM FOOT

WHITTINGTON Hospital bosses warned yesterday (Wednesday) there will be “consequences” if their shock sell-off plans were derailed by a massive people power campaign.

Chairman Joe Liddane told the New Journal the move to push care into neighbourhood centres would guarantee the Highgate hospital’s survival.

He said: “This is the way that healthcare is going. Clearly, we haven’t communicated enough about our strategy. We won’t be able to reconcile all of the views of the public but we want to involve them in this.

“We think we have a plan that saves the hospital. If that is defeated – there are consequences.”

Those consequences could include being swallowed up by another hospital trust or being taken over by a private provider – neither of which are options likely to win much favour.

Senior figures have warned that decisions to shut down services could be taken out of the hands of the hospital board.

As revealed in a New Journal exclusive last month, massive changes will see the main hospital site downsized, with care moved into community health centres across north London. Under the current proposals, 570 “posts” – including about 200 nurses – will be axed and the total bed count cut from 360 to 177 over five years.

Land at the north of the hospital site – where all nursing accommodation and three wards are based – will be sold for around £17million. Money from the sale will be spent on improving the maternity service, with £7million earmarked for a digital medical records system.

Mr Liddane said that due to “natural turnover” of staff over five years, it would be possible to “recast the workforce to fit for the strategy” and keep actual redundancies low.

The changes would “not be as dramatic as it sounds”, he insisted.

Chief executive Dr Yi Mien Koh said the “ratio of nurse-to-patient exceeds the national average”. She added: “Care for some patients, certainly the older people, is better in their own homes. In the old days, the whole episode would have taken several days. Now, from the moment they are treated we get them to mobilise straight away. We get them discharged as soon as possible.”

The worry will be that patients will be left at home alone or without care they need, but Mr Liddane said that, under the changes, the Whittington would maintain “responsibility” for patients once they have been discharged.

Dr Koh said the new vision for the Whittington had been “stimulated by the financial climate we are all finding ourselves in”, adding: “But even in a time of growth we should have done this. But there wasn’t that push that we have now. Some of the good things that have come out is that we are thinking more imaginatively and innovatively, but we would never compromise our quality.”

She said increasing private patient income to maintain the hospital in its current form – as University College London Hospital and the Royal Free have done – was “not being considered”.

Dr Koh stressed that the drive to push care into the community was coming from GPs, who from April will be responsible for NHS funding decisions under government health reforms. She said: “GP commissioners want us to provide more care in the community out of these health centres. It is the GPs who are asking for this. They are saying patients want to be cared for closer to home.”