§ Mr. GrayTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the consultants who have been employed on the franchising of Royal United Hospital, Bath and Bristol Royal Infirmary (RUH and BRI) what estimate he has made of(a) official and (b) managerial man hours spent on the proposed franchising of RUH and BRI; what the latest estimate is of the cost to public funds of the proposed franchising of RUH and BRI; and if he will make a statement on the future of the Royal United Hospital, Bath.[108538]
§ Ms BlearsWork on franchising at the Royal United Hospitals Bath national health service trust and United Bristol Teaching Hospital NHS trust has been progressing over the last three months. This work has been informed by specialist legal and financial advice commissioned by Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Strategic Health Authority (SHA) at an expected cost of approximately £119,000.
It has become clear that the issues facing the local health community require a system wide approach, rather than looking for solutions within individual NHS organisations. The SHA has concluded that given the scale of the problems—and the management action required to achieve recovery—the SHA will be taking a much more direct role in the overall management of the two trusts than would normally be the case. This decision was based In part on the work carried out over the last three months.
Management time is not recorded by task undertaken and it is therefore not possible to differentiate the amount of time allocated to this task in the SHA.