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Scandal hit Mid Staffs 'faces being dissolved' | |
(35 minutes later) | |
By James Gallagher and Nick Triggle BBC News | |
The scandal-hit Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust faces being dissolved after regulators announced the administration process was to begin. | |
The trust has been at the centre of one of the worst scandals in NHS history after neglect and abuse led to hundreds of needless deaths from 2005 to 2008. | |
Mid Staffordshire has also faced serious financial problems - it got a £20m bailout by government last year. | |
The regulator Monitor has now decided it should be put into administration. | |
This means an independent administrator will take over the running of the trust before coming up with proposals for the long-term. | |
A range of options are available, including closing down the trust altogether. If this happens essential services would be taken on by another organisation. | |
The administrator could also recommend the trust not be scrapped although it would not exist in its current form. | |
Monitor has decided "in principle" the process should start, although other bodies need to be consulted before the process officially starts. | |
That is only expected to take a couple of weeks. | |
Not sustainable | |
It is the second time an NHS trust has faced such a process - earlier this year the decision to break up South London Healthcare was agreed. | |
Mid Staffordshire looks after Stafford and Cannock Chase hospitals. | |
It was at the Stafford site that "appalling" care led to the deaths of more than 400 patients. | |
There has been five major investigations into what went wrong, including the public inquiry published earlier this month which criticised the whole NHS for the handling of the problems. | |
It has also been clear for some time that the trust was struggling financially. | |
A report by Monitor earlier said in order to break even there would need to be savings of 7% of its yearly budget. | |
It has now concluded that the trust is neither clinically nor financially sustainable in its current form. | |
David Bennett, the chief executive of Monitor, said: "We are now consulting on whether to appoint administrators with the expertise to reorganise services in a way which is clinically robust and sustainable. | |
"Their priority will be to make sure that patients can continue to access the services that they need and they will work with the local community to do this." | |
The Department of Health in England said the serious financial challenges the trust was facing was "putting at risk its work on improving services". | |
"It is important that valued local services will last and are able to continue providing high quality treatment and advice for patients," the spokesman added. | |
Professor John Caldwell, the trust's chairman, said "We have accepted for some time that the trust, working alone cannot produce a long lasting solution to the issues we face. | |
"We will continue to work with our regulators and commissioners to deliver the services they require to our local community." | |
Julie Bailey, founder of the campaign group Cure the NHS, which brought the failings at the hospital to national attention, said: "We are obviously distressed. But this was inevitable really." |