Troubled Rotherham FT plans £5m 'corporate' savings

Rotherham, which has faced performance, finance and governance problems over the past six months, is the subject of the latest HSJ Local Briefing.

An internal trust document seen by HSJ show it has increased its target savings for “corporate” functions from £2.2m to £5m.

The report says: “This rapid and significant reduction in corporate overheads is considered appropriate as this is a low risk to clinical quality and patient safety.”

The move is likely to lead to redundancies. But the trust has drawn back from ealier savings plans, made public last year, which had proposed front line post cuts. There are now relatively few posts expected to go outside of corporate functions. The trust has also put plans to close wards “on hold for the foreseeable future”.

However, the trust is to press ahead with the implementation of its controversial electronic patient record system, despite problems when it went first went live nearly a year ago.

In a statement to HSJ the trust said: “The trust is confident that a clinical led rework of the Meditech EPR system will provide the benefits of an electronic record commensurate with the needs of clinicians and administrative support functions. Once the level of progress in system stabilisation and rework is suitable we will then move forward with additional clinical system evaluation and installation as appropriate.”

The trust was found in breach of its authorisation by Monitor earlier this year – partly due to problems with the EPR system, which was affecting its income – and has given conditions on its provider license by Monitor.