New team to shape the future of Stafford Hospital

Clinician Dr Hugo Mascie-Taylor and Alan Bloom of Ernst and Young were taking the helm today after the board of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust was suspended with immediate effect. The senior management team, including outgoing chief executive Lyn Hill-Tout, will report to the administrators while they complete their review.

Dr Mascie-Taylor and Mr Bloom will produce a report which will go out for consultation before being considered by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who will confirm the long-term plans for Stafford. The entire process will take 145 working days.

The administrators' appointment was made following consultation with Mr Hunt and an order authorising the appointment was laid before Parliament yesterday.

The trust was given a £20million government bailout last year and would have needed another £20m cash injection to keep it going this year. The special administrators said the consultation, set to start in the week beginning June 24, will consist of talks with staff, members of the public, patients and key stakeholders.

The administrators will then have 15 working days in which to draw up a final report, which Monitor and Mr Hunt will have about 10 to 11 weeks to review. At a press conference announcing the appointment of the administrators, Monitor said all services at Stafford and Cannock would remain the same until the entire 145-day process is complete. Patient care will continue as normal, and patients should attend appointments as usual.

The trust's senior management remain in their current roles, and trust staff remain employees on their agreed terms and conditions and pensions. Suppliers will be paid and should continue to take instructions and orders from trust staff in the usual way.

Members of the trust board have, however, been suspended.

Mr Bloom, who has more than 30 years of re-structuring experience, will be the accountable officer and jointly oversee the running of the trust with his co-appointee.

He said: "As the administrators, we have two roles for the next 145 working days. The first is to oversee the running of the trust. Our second role is simultaneously to develop and consult upon a draft report about what should happen to the organisation, and the services it provides, so that local people receive the high-quality health services and care they need."

Prof Mascie-Taylor, former medical director of the NHS Confederation, said: "We will be working closely with Clinical Commissioning Groups on the draft report – they determine which health services must continue to be provided locally.

"We are also committed to consulting widely with the public, patients, staff and all stakeholders as part of this process."

An independent review into the trust, conducted on behalf of Monitor, concluded that the organisation was neither clinically nor financially sustainable in its current form. The same experts suggested that the hospitals run by the trust should be downgraded to make it sustainable.

The trust should retain two smaller operations at Stafford Hospital and Cannock Chase Hospital, the Contingency Planning Team (CPT) said. But "serious care" and a number of services, including specialist surgical patients, paediatric inpatients and maternity services, should be provided at neighbouring organisations including University Hospital of North Staffordshire, the Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust and Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, it said.

The administrators are, however, not bound by the CPT's recommendations and said they will be using the research compiled in the report to reach their own conclusions. Lyn Hill-Tout, chief executive at the trust, said: "Our staff continue to provide care for our patients at both Stafford and Cannock Chase Hospitals, and are very proud to continue to put patients first.

"We would like to reassure local people and GPs that we are continuing to provide all our usual services at both hospitals," she added.

At a meeting of the Stafford and Surround Clinical Commissioning Group yesterday, chairwoman Dr Margaret Jones said both the Stafford CCG and Cannock Chase CCG would be working with the administrators to "make sure safe and sustainable services will continue".

Monitor recommended the £70m downgrade of services within the trust last month.

The downgrade would see emergency surgery and intensive care withdrawn from Stafford, with patients sent elsewhere instead. Some services at Cannock Chase Hospital would also be affected.

An inquiry by Robert Francis QC into hundreds of "excess" deaths at the hospital between 2005 and 2009 concluded in February this year that there had been failure at every level of the health service.