Dear colleague, We have now entered a new financial This begins with us achieving a good year, one which will shape the long-term Financial Risk Rating (FRR) of 3.8. The FRR future of St George’s. I want to use this One is used by Monitor, the FT independent Message to underline to colleagues just regulator, who has set out a number of how crucial it is that we all work together to requirements for trusts to meet in order to ensure that we meet our financial targets be fit for FT status. for 2010/11. In order for us to achieve a good FRR we St George’s has come a long way since need to be seen to be a financially viable organisation with strong liquidity, and this 2005 when the trust reported the worst is achieved through delivering a certain financial deficit in the NHS. We have made level of surplus, managing aspects of significant progress since that time and it is financial management such as debtors, thanks to the dedication and hard work of creditors and stock as well as managing our staff across the organisation that our future capital spend. is still in our own hands. I am pleased to report that we recorded a trading surplus of We have identified that we will need to £2.6million in 2009/2010. This means that deliver a trading surplus of £6.5million we have achieved a trading surplus three as one of the ways that we can achieve years running. We have also successfully this. We also need to support a capital stayed within our Capital Resource Limit programme of £24.5 million for which we and External Finance Limit which are have planned investment. Projects such as statutory requirements set out by the our neonatal and paediatric unit expansion, Department of Health. acute medical unit development and a breast screening unit refurbishment are But while it is important to acknowledge examples of what we aim to achieve. our successes we must also prepare ourselves for 2010/11. Without doubt this I have talked before about 2010/2011 will prove our most challenging year to being the year in which we aim to clear our date as we work to meet a cost reduction historic debts. We have been paying off our Our values programme of £42million against the loan year on year and aim to pay off the backdrop of the UK’s economic problems remaining portion of £16million in full by + excellent + which are set to have a major impact on September 2011. The £12million that we NHS finances. will be receiving from the Challenged Trust + kind + Board, which was established to reduce + responsible + The scale of the 2010/11 challenge the debts of London trusts, will assist us in paying this debt; £8million of this came + respectful + at the end of 2009/10 and will appear as Our targets for this year are ambitious surplus income on our accounts. A further but they must be met if we are to achieve £4million will be given to us in 2010/2011, if Foundation Trust (FT) status. we deliver against our agreed targets. Achieving our goals If we are able to deliver on all our CQUIN targets we stand to benefit from the CQUIN monies which are worth £5m, so In order to achieve the challenges set out it is important that we work towards this. above we will need to deliver a robust cost CQUIN, which stands for the commissioning reduction programme. We have started for quality and innovation, is a payment to review our expenditure on goods and framework that makes a proportion of the services to see where we can make both hospital’s income conditional on quality efficient and effective savings. With the help and innovation. Its aim is to support the of divisions and directorates across the trust vision set out in High Quality Care for All we have managed to identify areas in which (2008) of an NHS where quality is the we can reduce our costs and also areas organising principle. that will help us save money. On top of this, we have the corporate cost reduction programmes which have been worked up Making our vision a reality centrally to identify further savings. The above are just some of the targets that An example of a project that will help us we will need to meet if we are to achieve deliver a saving of around £5million is the our vision of being a thriving Foundation transforming procurement programme Trust at the heart of an integrated healthcare system. One that delivers which looks at the methods the trust uses improved patient care in the community, to acquire supplies. This includes sourcing, hospital and specialist settings, supported contracting and how we distribute and by a unique and nationally recognised manage our supplies. The aim of the programme of research, education and programme is to free up clinical staff time employee engagement. so that staff are able to focus on providing excellent patient care by increasing the Let’s all keep this vision at the forefront of responsibilities, capacity and capability of our minds as we work towards securing our the procurement team. finances and ensuring St George’s future.
Another key project is our plan to integrate
with Community Services Wandsworth. The Regards aim of this project is to create an integrated care organisation focused on improving the patient experience and outcomes by linking community care and hospital care even more closely. Integrated clinical teams David Astley could provide complete patient pathways, Chief Executive spanning community and acute care. This Our values should help reduce avoidable admissions into hospital and reduce the time inpatients + excellent + have to spend in hospital. It should also help to improve local access to outpatient + kind + and diagnostic services by moving more services off the acute hospital site and into + responsible + the community.
+ respectful + Through these changes we will be able to
provide improved care to our patients and be able to profit from increased activity and fairer tariffs to the tune of some £13m.