Trust spent nearly £6m a year on unit

10:29am Friday 5th September 2008

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A DEBT-RIDDEN health trust spent nearly £30m on a planned surgery unit it is closing five years after it opened.

News Shopper has learned that Bromley Hospitals' NHS Trust, which opened the £8.8m unit at Orpington Treatment Centre in 2003, spent on average £5.75m a year running it.

The trust, which has a historic debt of £99m, announced in July it was closing the unit and transferring services to the Princess Royal University Hospital, Farnborough by autumn, to save £1m each year.

Running costs included paying for staff, medical supplies, utilities as well as equipment, cleaning and environment maintenance.

When the unit opened, the trust set aside a budget of £2.8m for the period from September 2003 to March 2004 but spent £4.2m.

For the other years the trust's spending was within the budget set.

Orpington MP John Horam says the figures make very interesting reading.

The Tory said: "This makes the removal of the planned surgery centre look even dumber.

"Not only was it a success medically, but it was, apart from the first year, running within budget.

"How many departments in the PRUH have been doing that?

He added: "The management says moving the centre will save £1m a year, but they are losing nearly £20m a year, so the real problems lie elsewhere - in the PRUH or in the PFI financing.

"The management should get this right, and not disturb the successful bits of the hospital."

A petition of nearly 10,000 signatures has been drawn up against the trust's decision to close the unit.

Organiser Julie Mott, a 61-year-old mother of two, had a hip replacement operation at the centre in June.

She said: "It is our NHS and these are our facilities and we don't want to lose them for a measly saving of £1m a year.

"Against the £99m debt they have incurred this amount is a mere drop in the ocean."

A trust spokesman said: "Orpington Treatment Centre was created at a time when the NHS had long waiting lists and the vision was that patients from outside of the Bromley area would be sent there for treatment.

"Circumstances have changed and patients now have the Government's promise of having surgery within 18 weeks.

"With the reduction in waiting lists, hospitals are now able to treat patients without having to send them elsewhere."

The spokesman added: "Objections raised by the public are clearly to do with an emotional attachment to this small but much loved unit.

"However, what is not understood is that we are unable to run it as efficiently as we can at the PRUH.

"It simply does not make sense to run 13 theatres across three sites when we do not need them and have capacity at our major site.

"The bottom line is the trust must make savings - if we can do it without impacting on patient care then we will close buildings.

"The NHS is first and foremost about patients not buildings."

MONEY SPENT RUNNING UNIT

2003/04 £4.2m (from September 2003)
2004/05 £6.5m
2005/06 £6.6m
2006/07 £6.2m
2007/08 £5.2m