THE Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust and the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust have committed to working more closely together to ensure that patients are offered high quality and sustainable services now and in the future.

The two trusts, with the support of NHS Improvement, NHS England and the Department of Health, have been encouraged to develop a closer working relationship to help improve the quality of care provided to patients in an affordable way.

The two NHS trusts have signed a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ and work has started to highlight areas where closer working relationships may be beneficial. This could be through clinical collaboration in particular specialities or shared back office support to achieve financial efficiencies. The areas being considered currently are:

Chief Executive of the Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust, Phil Morley said:
“This is an exciting time for both our Trusts. Between us we already provide a wide range of essential acute hospital services to people in the West Essex and Hertfordshire area. Closer working will make sense geographically as well as offering more opportunities to provide high quality ‘joined up’ care for residents of North and East Hertfordshire and West Essex.

“A working group has been set up to fast- track the opportunities for service integration that have already been highlighted, as well as identifying other services which could benefit from closer working. We are committed to improving the quality of services that our patients receive and using our funding in the most beneficial way.”

Nick Carver, the Chief Executive of East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, which runs the Lister, New QEII and Hertford County hospitals, said: “We look forward to working with our colleagues at Princess Alexandra to see how we can help develop better, more efficient services for the benefit of people in both West Essex and East Hertfordshire.”

The management of both NHS trusts agree that the majority of services provided through their respective hospitals will continue to be delivered from their current locations. The Princess Alexandra Hospital is currently in ongoing conversations with the Department of Health concerning the updating of the hospital’s buildings in Harlow.

Beverley Flowers, Chief Executive of East and North Hertfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, one of the NHS organisations which commissions health services from both trusts and monitors their quality and effectiveness said: “With a growing and ageing population and increasing demand for health services, sharing expertise and working closer together makes good sense. We are committed to supporting our trust colleagues as they work more closely together in the interests of patients.”

Andrew Geldard, Chief Officer of West Essex Clinical Commissioning Group said: “This is an important step forwards. West Essex CCG is committed to introducing patient centred care and this agreement means that the people of West Essex can now expect greater continuity of care, more convenient and more efficient services.”