Cuts hospital chief Julie Burgess, of Heatherwood and Wexham Park trust, admits failings (From Bucks Free Press)

Cuts hospital chief Julie Burgess, of Heatherwood and Wexham Park trust, admits failings

12:19pm Monday 12th July 2010 in

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A HOSPITAL chief who is slashing beds and staff admitted patients are being sent home without social services teams to look after them.

Julie Burgess, chief executive of Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, is cutting about a quarter of its budget.

Wexham Park Hospital in Slough and Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot takes about 40 per cent of emergency and 25 per cent of planned patients from Chiltern and South Bucks districts.

Mrs Burgess admitted major financial mistakes had been made by bosses – and 470 posts and 170 beds had to be axed and patients discharged from wards earlier.

She told a committee of councillors: “They are discharged when they are fit to go home, not when they are fit to meet the target.

“When that happens, I see every single complaint that comes to the organisation, we do review that.”

She said finding social services teams is ‘harder’ in South Bucks district, which includes Beaconsfield and Gerrards Cross. This can keep patients in hospital or send them out early.

Cllr Alan Oxley said: “I have to say, my personal experience about this is you have had people kept in there because it is not safe to release them home and there is nowhere else for them to go.

“I am just concerned about how much success you are actually having.”

The ‘deteriorating’ financial picture emerged early last year, Mrs Burgess said, and national regulator Monitor intervened in October, putting in place an interim chairman.

“A lot of other symptoms started to show,” when it probed the trust, she said.

“The question that people still ask me a lot is how did this happen?

“The three underlying causes was a lack of effective systems and processes, there was poor governance and one has to question the leadership of the organisation.”

The ‘previous leadership was reactive and not fully understanding of their responsibilities’ she said.

Mrs Burgess said: “Instead of going down the road of cut, cut, cut, we need to transform how services are delivered.”

She said the trust was a top performer around clinical care, with low MRSA infection rates and a good A&E department.

As the trust becomes ‘more efficient’ it would need fewer beds and staff, she said. Of the 470 posts, 320 have not been recruited to and are being frozen. It has 3,900 full time workers.

But she said: “We want to re-deploy as many people as possible. We don’t want to be making people redundant.”

Mrs Burgess said: “This is all about moving towards best practice.” Her presentation to the Buckinghamshire County Council committee was called ‘Getting Better Together’.

Some £46.3m of savings needs to be found from a £214m budget, which is expected to be cut in coming years, she said. Budgets were still being overspent, she added.

More patients will be treated without the need for an overnight stay, said Mrs Burgess, chief executive since June 2009.

Staff who live near the hospital will not be allowed to park there in future, she said, in a bid to open up spaces. Demand is three times higher than can be met, Mrs Burgess said.

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