An acute trust has come out of NHS England’s “recovery support” regime, more than seven years after it was placed in special measures.
Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust (SaTH) has made significant improvements in finance, performance, and governance, a review by NHS England has decided.
It was initially put in “special measures” by regulators in 2018. That regime was scrapped in 2021, when SaTH was moved to the new ”recovery support programme”.
Major failings in its maternity services were uncovered in the late 2010s, which were subject to an inquiry that reported in 2022, and are still subject to a police investigation.
In the last 18 months, the trust has moved up to 96 out of 134 acute trusts in NHSE’s oversight league table and has been identified as the most improved nationally on elective performance. It has also improved diagnostic performance.
Andrew Morgan, group chair of SaTH and Shropshire Community Health Trust, told HSJ: “There’s a real buzz about the place now. As a non-executive chair who’s not full-time, I see it when I wander about the sites. There’s just a very different feel about the place.”
Asked how the change was achieved, Mr Morgan said: “It’s a combination of really clear plans that the board owns, that we believe in, and that all of the organisation has signed up to – they own those plans, and they want to deliver them. We’ve given people every bit of support we can muster to help them with that.”
He added: “You can’t do everything. If you’ve specific issues… you focus on the things that you need to focus on, and you put those things right.”
Speaking about national review meetings with NHSE, Mr Morgan said: “What the other side of the table needs is confidence, confidence that when an organisation such as SaTH says something that it’s going to do, it does actually go off and do it.
“Things like having a financial plan that you deliver. We are going to deliver our financial plan this year. I think it’s well over 10 years since this trust delivered its financial plan.”
The trust is in the process of implementing a major reconfiguration, which includes downgrading the accident and emergency at Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital to an urgent care centre, centralising emergency care at the Royal Shrewsbury, following a decade of delays.
SaTH formed a group model with the local community health trust last summer, something Mr Morgan said helped enable its transformation.
“Part of our improvement is the fact that we’ve formed the group,” he said. It helped improve patient flow, value for money, and “great care close to home”, he said, as well as “simplified decision making [and] simplified communication”.
Mr Morgan, previously joint CEO of acute and community trusts in Lincolnshire, said: “If you were starting again to design the NHS, you would not create a separate hospital and community trust in an area the size of Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin.”
He said SaTH does not have any particular ambitions to become an advanced foundation trust or integrated health organisation, however.
CEO Jo Williams said in a statement: “We know that we have much more still to do, particularly in urgent and emergency care, but we are making tangible progress and we are pleased this has been recognised by NHS England and partners.”
