Grave concerns over Gloucestershire Hospitals Trust’s £11m financial hole

A revised forecast estimates that the Trust will have a deficit of £11.1 million – instead of the surplus of £5.3million it was aiming for by the end of this financial year.

Mark Hawthorne, Conservative leader of Gloucestershire County Council, raised issues with the Trust’s financial management, board level governance practices, and auditing.

He has called for any inquiry into the events to be “a full and genuine independent review, with independent oversight from outside of the NHS”.

Meanwhile Cllr Iain Dobie, Liberal Democrat Group spokesperson on Health, also criticise the Trust, saying there had been a “local failure of financial competence” on behalf of both the director and governing board.

The news comes just three months after Chief Executive Deborah Lee took over from Dr Frank Harsent, who had led the trust since 2007.

Prompt intervention by the government and regulator NHS Improvement means the change will have no impact on patient care.

The trust’s overall income this year is expected to be £530m, a 7.7 per cent increase on the £492m it received last year.

Cllr Hawthorne further called on the trust to immediately suspend the process of appointing a replacement for Professor Claire Chilvers, the trust’s chair, until an independent inquiry concludes.

“I can’t believe Gloucestershire Hospitals Trust’s Board got their figures so badly wrong, despite the substantial extra funding they receive from government year on year,” he said.

“This suggests serious, ongoing problems at board level, which must pre-date the appointment of Deborah Lee as Chief Executive, who appears to have uncovered this mess. “It is good news the government has taken prompt action to make sure that patient services aren’t affected as a result. “For this to have happened every safeguard of good governance has failed or been by-passed, possibly for several years.

“This now requires a full and genuine independent review, with independent oversight from outside of the NHS. “The staff who work so hard at Gloucestershire Royal and Cheltenham General hospitals, the patients who depend on them, and all the residents of Gloucestershire deserve nothing less.

“Before any enquiry concludes, however, it would be wrong for the trust’s Council of Governors to appoint any replacement to Dr Chilvers.”

Liberal Democrat councillor Ian Dobie added: “I am shocked that Deborah Lee, the new Chief Executive of the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust, is reporting this unexpected black hole in the finances of Cheltenham General and Gloucestershire Royal hospitals.

“On the face of it, there seems to have been a local failure of financial competence - not only by the relevant director but also by the governing board.

“Deborah Lee appeared before my Gloucestershire Health Scrutiny committee just a few days ago and said she was not taking over an NHS hospitals trust in crisis - and now we learn earlier projections about the financial position of our county's main hospitals have been wildly optimistic.

“Far from being well in the black, accounts are deeply in the red. The county's scrutiny committee must now be told what is going on and what is being done about it.

“Meanwhile, the Government cannot escape responsibility for presiding over a deepening financial crisis in our hospitals, which is leading to a steady decline in patient provision not only in Cheltenham and Gloucester but across our county."

Deborah Lee, chief executive of the Trust and speaking on behalf of the Trust Board said: "We deeply regret that the oversight of our finances wasn’t as strong as it should have been.

"We have taken immediate steps to stabilise the Trust’s financial position, for example, we have reviewed our immediate capital spending priorities and arranged a loan so we can access up to £20million to strengthen our immediate cash position.

"Patients should be reassured that our services continue to run as normal.

"Any patients who need treatment at Cheltenham General Hospital, Gloucestershire Royal Hospital or Stroud Maternity Unit should continue to access services in the same way they have always done."

Ms Lee, who joined the Trust in June of this year, added: “We are commissioning a full independent financial governance review to inform how we govern our finances going forward so this cannot happen again, and we will be putting a detailed action plan in place to bring our finances back on track.

“I firmly believe excellent quality of care and good financial health go hand in hand and am determined as a Trust we will meet the challenges ahead in order to continue to provide high quality, sustainable services for our patients.

“We also welcome the support of our main commissioner, Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group, and the national regulator, NHS Improvement, who we will work closely with to resolve this situation.”

The news comes amid controversial plans to change the opening hours of the Minor Injuries and Illness Units in Stroud and Cirencester.

More than 5,000 people signed a petition against the proposed changes, triggering a debate at Gloucestershire County Council last week.

NHS bosses have stressed the overnight closure was due to a lack of patients and the willingness of nurses to work antisocial late night shifts – which led to closures and made the unit on Trinity Road economically unviable.

They continually stressed the closure was “not about cost-cutting”.