Acute services at Kettering General Hospital Foundation Trust and Northampton General Hospital Trust are to be merged as part of sustainability and transformation plans, HSJ can reveal.
The plans state that while the Northamptonshire STP has “not opted for organisational merger” of the trusts “given the direction of travel this may occur in the future”.
HSJ made a successful freedom of information request to obtain Nene Clinical Commissioning Group’s back office and unsustainable services consolidation plans, which it submitted to NHS Improvement in July. Nene CCG is the commissioner for both hospitals, and the STP includes Kettering General, Northampton General, Northamptonshire Healthcare FT, Nene CCG, Corby CCG and Northampton county council.
The documents show that a single service model for 10 specialities is in the process of being created, with a memo saying “this is how the STP footprint will deliver efficiencies from its planned care specialities”. The reconfiguration will see the integration of clinical directorates at each site and non-acute care primarily offered “out of hospital [to] enable efficiencies to be unlocked”.