Plans to merge NHS trusts in Cornwall will mean people would get treatment closer
A business case is being prepared ahead of a public consultation.
Plans being drawn up to merge two of the main NHS trusts in Cornwall would help to ensure people could be treated closer to home.
Proposals are being prepared to bring together Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (RCHT) and Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT).
A strategic case for the merger has been published and a business case is now being prepared with plans to start public consultation on the move in the new year.
The plans were presented to a meeting of Cornwall Council’s health and adult social care overview and scrutiny committee today.
Phil Confue, chief executive of CPFT, said: “This is consolidation of healthcare services in Cornwall to deliver the best that we can. We believe that this is the best option for Cornwall to consider.”
RCHT operates Royal Cornwall Hospital at Treliske as well as West Cornwall Hospital and St Michael’s Hospital providing acute care and specialist health services.
CPFT is responsible for mental health and physical health services as well as running community hospitals across Cornwall.
Mr Confue said that by bringing the two organisations together it would make it better for people in Cornwall.
He said: “We are hoping that this will overcome some of the boundaries that we have with two NHS trusts.
“The public believe we are one NHS anyway and one trust so don’t understand the problems that we have anyway.”
Mr Confue said that the merger would help to bring “services closer to home and the development of more hospitals”.
He said that it could lead to more developments in Camborne and Redruth as well as on the Isles of Scilly and at Bodmin.
Mr Confue said that the COVID-19 crisis had forced the two trusts to work more closely together and that they want to build on that.
He said: “It will support us as one large provider of NHS services in Cornwall and we can increase our number of apprenticeships and our purchasing power.”
Mairi McLean, chair of RCHT, told the committee: “This is something we are really excited about..”
She said that by having one organisation would help as “people don’t want to have to tell their story twice”.
Some patients could find themselves having to provide their information and details to clinicians in both trusts due to problems with sharing information across the organisations.
Dr McLean said that having a single organisation would help to solve that problem.
“For relatives too to have one organisation that they need to communicate with when they are worried about people is really excellent,” she said.
Barbara Vann, chair of CPFT, said that there would be clear benefits for people in Cornwall.
She said: “One of the things that we have been trying to address is this issue that people of Cornwall have been telling us about that is about wanting their care closer to their home as they possibly can with the reassurance that the quality of what they receive is the same across the county and we have worked very hard on that.
“It is about not travelling for hours across the county to see someone for a ten-minute appointment.”
Cornwall councillor Loveday Jenkin welcomed the idea saying: “This is something that makes a lot of common sense to have one access point where there are currently two and have one organisation.”
Labour councillor Jayne Kirkham said that she was concerned that community services could miss out as priority would have to be given to acute services.
She said: “It is important that those services are maintained as they are underfunded as it is.”
Mr Confue said that there had been an “anxiety that the acute side will take over and the community side will suffer” but said that he had been told very clearly that that would not happen.
The committee voted to note the report and asked for councillors’ comments to be taken into account and asked that the business case come back to the committee for consideration.