VITAL cash bailouts to rescue East Lancashire's hospitals from a beds crisis will not be available if they are granted Foundation Trust status.

Currently, East Lancashire's Hospitals main source of income is from the two East Lancashire Primary Care Trusts (PCT's). What we have now is an internal NHS 'market system' where healthcare is commissioned (bought) by the PCT's with the Hospital trust being the provider of secondary healthcare (Hospital services) .

If the Hospital trust gets into financial difficulty, it can request the PCT's give them money to bail them out. That is, the Hospital trust uses public funding to help them stabilise their finanical plans.

Last week the East Lancs NHS Trust declared they had a £2million black hole in their budget and requested the PCT's bail them out. The East Lancs PCT's handed out almost £1million stating more money is on its way to help.

That's £1 MILLION of our money to save a Hospital Trust who removed A&E services at Burnley against our wishes. The Hospital Trust was warned in 2006 that removing A&E services in Burnley would result in serious clinical and financial difficulty, and now we're throwing money at the Trust to bail them out?

Foundation Trust Hospitals

The East Lancashire Hospitals Trust are currently applying for what's called 'Foundation Trust' status. Unlike the existing trust NHS 'market' model, Foundation Trusts are not under the direct control of the Health Secretary. Instead, they are independent, and they are responsible for their own money.

If East Lancashire Hospitals Trust attain Foundation status they will no longer receive extra funding from the PCT's when they get into financial difficulty. For example if the current Trust was a Foundation Trust it may not have received the extra £4m from government to accelerate the Phase five programme at Burnley Hospital earlier this year. Nor would it have received any money from the two East Lancashire PCT's to patch the £2m black hole in their budget.

• To achieve Foundation Trust status, an existing NHS Trust show it can deliver financial balance and meet other criteria such as meeting performance targets for seeing patients within 4 hours of being admitted to A&E or assuring patients referred from GP's are seen by hospital consultants within 18 weeks of being referred by their GP's (doctors).

Wealth before Health

Foundation Trusts have more power than a normal hospital over the services that are available to patients in their area. Their national regulator, Monitor, has advised Foundation Trusts to stop providing unprofitable treatments where possible and focus on the kind of work that will bring them the most money. This is a huge worry for the future of the NHS in East Lancashire – it could easily lead to a situation where people can’t get the operation they need at their local hospital because, as a Foundation Trust, it has decided not to offer that treatment.

Foundation Trusts have also started to set up separate profit-making ventures. They have been using various arrangements to get around the law, which stops them from carrying out too much private work. For example, the Moorfields Eye Hospital is running a franchise in Dubai, and University College London hospital has launched a joint venture with the Hospital Corporation of America, which has taken over a wing of the London hospital to treat private patients.

If the existing NHS Trust cannot manage their accounts, how will they manage if they become a Foundation Trust?

The simple answer is they will turn to the private sector to borrow.

Why the Hospitals' Trust must not get Foundation Trust Status

It's Our NHS Campaign team have set out below just a few reasons why our Hospital Trust here in East Lancashire should not attain 'Foundation' status. Click HERE to Read more...