Meetings could see Peterborough City Hospital and Hinchingbrooke Hospital merger move step closer

Peterborough City Hospital exteriors EMN-141118-141223009

Both sets of board of directors at Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust are to publicly discuss closer collaboration.

An outline business case has been developed since January 2016 which contains four options. These are:

Option 1 - Do nothing for now

Option 2 - Shared back office function - leading and integrating back office and operational services to deliver reduced costs and sustainable services

Option 3 - As per option 2, plus two boards, one executive team and one operational organisation

Option 4 - One organisation.

In a joint statement, the two chief executives of the hospital trusts, Lance McCarthy of Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust and Stephen Graves of Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “In our original timetable for this work, our respective boards planned to discuss the outline business case document in private meetings to be held at the end of April.

“However, it is clear that both trust boards are committed to making their decisions publicly on how we progress the outline business case, which is why we have rearranged the meetings for a few weeks later to ensure they can be held outside of the constraints of the pre-election period.

“If the boards of each trust agree that they want to pursue options 2, 3 or 4, the next steps will be to produce a full business case to set out how the chosen option will be put into operation.

“Should this be the case, both trusts are committed to engaging with members of the public to help inform the full business case.”

If a full business case is required, this will be completed over the summer months.

The board of directors at Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust will meet on Monday, May 23 at 11am in the Partnership Suite at Hinchingbrooke Hospital.

On Tuesday, May 24 the board of directors at Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will meet in the board room at Peterborough City Hospital at 1.30pm.

Peterborough City Hospital could merge with Hinchingbrooke