The first NHS hospital to be managed by a private company has asked for a government bailout of nearly £10m, just six weeks before it is handed back to the public sector.
The request comes a month after stock market-listed Circle Healthcare said it was abandoning its deal to run the 365-bed Hinchingbrooke hospital in Cambridgeshire.
Circle is expected to hand over operations to the NHS on March 31 but will leave an expected deficit of between £7.7m and £12m for the financial year, according to Hinchingbrooke Health Care Trust’s latest finance report, first reported in the Health Service Journal.
The company will not be liable under the terms of its contract, which places a £5m cap on its losses, a figure that has already been reached.
Michelle Tempest, a consultant at Candesic, the healthcare consultancy, said: “If it were a private company they would let it go bust but, given they can’t, taxpayers will have to foot the bill for keeping the hospital running. Circle has effectively limited its losses to £5m but it is the NHS that will now have to pick up the pieces and decide what to do.”
https://www.ft.com/content/770804fc-b070-11e4-a2cc-00144feab7de
Read the full article here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-31370127