- The Observer,
- Sunday March 2 2003
This week Health Secretary Alan Milburn will announce that 32 trusts have applied to become foundation hospitals, double the figure which officials had expected.
The response will confirm Tony Blair's belief that all hospitals should be allowed to attain foundation status within the next 10 years - in order to meet high public expectations of the NHS, but will alarm Chancellor Gordon Brown, who has warned about unleashing market forces into the health services. He fears this will not boost standards and that competition between hospitals could be damaging.
The 32 trusts have all made a preliminary application for foundation status, and a shortlist will be announced this month, according to the Health Service Journal. Only about 12 of them are expected to be given the green light in September.
They will be assessed in six key areas: their responsiveness to patients, their clinical standards, their commitment to staff, a good financial position, sound relationships with other services, and their quality of leadership.
Milburn will tell the Health Select Committee this Tuesday that 32 applications have been made, but he is not expected to give away many clues over which hospitals are likely to make it over the final hurdle.
The issue of foundation trusts has divided the Government because the new organisations will be allowed to borrow money for expansion from central funds.
GPs will be able to send patients to different hospitals, with the intention that top-performing trusts will have shorter waiting times.
The proposals sparked a bitter row last autumn, when advisers of the Chancellor and of Milburn gave conflicting views of how the trusts would work.
Although Brown won the battle over not allowing the trusts to borrow from the City, Downing Street decided that they would to set up a new Whitehall fund from which the hospitals could find the money to expand for hospital expansion.
Many Labour MPs are worried that a two-tier system will emerge, with large, top-performing hospitals quickly starting to look superior to their neighbouring competitors.
The trusts that have applied
Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases trust (specialist trust)
Basildon and Thurrock General University Hospitals trust
King's College Hospital trust
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals trust
Papworth Hospital trust (specialist)
Calderdale and Huddersfield trust
Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospital trust
Addenbrooke's trust
University Hospital Birmingham trust
Nuffield Orthopaedic trust
Walsall trust
Aintree Hospitals trust
Bradford Hospitals trust
University College London Hospitals trust
Essex Rivers Healthcare trust
Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals trust
Countess of Chester Hospital trust
Stockport trust
Homerton University Hospital trust
Queen Victoria Hospital trust (specialist)
North Tees and Hartlepool
Royal Devon and Exeter Healthcare trust
Gloucestershire Hospitals trust
Peterborough Hospitals trust
Royal Marsden Hospital trust
Guy's and St Thomas's trust, London
Moorfields Eye Hospital trust (specialist)
City Hospitals Sunderland trust
Frimley Park Hospital trust
Southern Derbyshire Acute Hospitals trust
East Cheshire trust
Rotherham General Hospitals trust
