Bids being prepared for Stafford Hospital services
Hospitals across the Midlands are preparing bids to take on services from Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, it emerged today.
Bosses at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton are drawing up plans which will be submitted to special administrators who have taken control of Mid Staffs.
They hope to be among 'two or three' sites which will run services stripped from Stafford and Cannock Chase hospitals. The deadline for applications is May 14.
Accident and emergency, maternity and intensive care could all be withdrawn from Stafford under proposals for a £70million downgrade published after watchdog Monitor ordered a review.
David Loughton, chief executive of the Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust which runs New Cross, said today: "We will be expressing an interest in the services at both Stafford and Cannock."
"We're working on it – they will narrow the field down to no more than two or three.
"You have to express an interest and go through this market-testing process."
The University Hospital of North Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent is also lining up an application. Bosses revealed today returning patients to Stafford as soon as possible would be a central pillar of their bid.
The trusts' bids will include a business plan detailing what services bosses believe they are able to help out with or provide.
