TRUST IN TROUBLE AS FINANCES FLOUNDER
- A project to build an endoscopy unit at St Albans City Hospital is going to cost 66% more than originally planned – £30m instead of £18m – and is already running two years behind schedule, the West Herts NHS Trust has admitted
- ‘Construction complexities at the St. Albans site have caused delays’ to the endoscopy scheme, the Trust Board has been told
- The Trust’s Chief Medical Officer and Chief Nursing Officer are ‘concerned at the design’ of the building and have requested an ‘urgent review’
- The St Albans endoscopy fiasco casts fresh doubt on the ability of the Trust to successfully build the much bigger £1.4bn 260 ft facility on the sloping, contaminated Watford General car park
- The Trust’s overall year-to-date deficit has hit £11.4m – the worst financial performance of any NHS body in the area. Meanwhile, the NHS Trust that runs Lister Hospital in Stevenage is managing to break even.
- There’s little chance of the current Government review of the ‘Forty New Hospitals’ giving the Trust the go-ahead for the Watford General rebuild – without a drastic improvement in financial performance