A plan to create a world-class centre to tackle heart disease is at risk from the financial crisis facing Barts hospitals, doctors warned. They fear the “toxic” impact of private finance initiative-related debts at Britain’s biggest NHS trust could blight proposals to merge the services provided by three hospitals into a £200mn cardiovascular centre at St Bartholomew’s in Smithfield.
The plan would merge the Heart Hospital, the London Chest Hospital and the heart unit at St Bartholomew’s.
The aim is to deliver a dramatic improvement in tackling heart disease, akin to the 400 lives saved since specialised stroke units were set up in the capital three years ago. Concerns about the merger were first raised by several consultants at UCLH’s Heart Hospital, who said they feared they were being “sacrificed” and forced to transfer to Barts Health to prop up a “high risk” trust.
UCLH bosses admitted their “anxiety” over Barts’ finances but insisted the clinical case for creating a specialist unit for north and east London, Hertfordshire and Essex was beyond question and urged NHS England to approve the merger. “I see this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really build something,” said Dr Edward Rowland, clinical director of the Heart Hospital. “In my heart, I don’t feel patients in London have had real world-class care.”
Professor David Fish, managing director of UCL Partners, said: “Londoners are fortunate that they now receive the best care for stroke in the world. We would need to understand who wouldn’t want it to be the same for people with cardiac disease.”
Barts is axing up to 1,000 posts across its six London hospitals in the hope of plugging a £50mn black hole — while trying to cope with the soaring repayments for its £1.1bn PFI.
The rebuilt Royal London hospital in Whitechapel and the new facilities at Smithfield will cost £7.1bn to repay, with repayments rising from £113mn this year to £274mn in 2048.
Barts would also have to raise a further £60mn to extend the new Smithfield hospital — which is due to admit its first patients next year — to include the cardiovascular centre.