Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust to go into administration
Scandal-hit Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust today became the first foundation trust in the country to be put into special administration by health watchdog Monitor.
The current trust board, including outgoing chief executive Lyn Hill-Tout, will report to two special administrators appointed to oversee the transformation of services at Stafford Hospital.
Monitor had earlier found the hospital trust was clinically and financially unsustainable.
Clinician Dr Hugo Mascie-Taylor and Alan Bloom, of Ernst and Young, will take over the running of the trust tomorrow.
Monitor has recommended the £70million downgrade of services at Stafford, and those proposals will now go before Dr Mascie-Taylor and Mr Bloom who will make a final ruling.
The downgrade would see emergency surgery and intensive care withdrawn from Stafford, with patients sent elsewhere instead. The latest development comes after up to 1,200 patients died unnecessarily at Stafford between 2005 and 2009, sparking a high profile public inquiry into poor care.
In a statement released this afternoon, Monitor said: "Monitor took the decision to make the appointment after experts in a contingency planning team concluded that the trust was neither clinically nor financially sustainable in its current form.
"The appointment has been made following consultation with the Health Secretary and an order authorising the appointment was laid before Parliament today."
Monitor said the special administrators would be given 45 working days to design a way of providing services to patients in the area "that is sustainable in the long term".
Their plan will be subject to a public consultation and services at the hospitals in Stafford and Cannock will continue to run as normal until a final decision is reached.
Monitor's chief executive David Bennett, who announced the regulator's decision at a news conference at Stafford Hospital, said: "It is important that people in Mid Staffordshire know that they can still access services as usual at Stafford and Cannock hospitals while the trust special administration process is ongoing.
"We have taken this decision to make sure that patients in the Mid Staffordshire area have the services they need in the future.
"It is now the role of the trust special administrators to work with the local community to decide the best way of delivering these services."
