Health trust's management rating plummets (From This Is Local London)

Health trust's management rating plummets

12:30pm Sunday 5th September 2010 in

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Financial problems have seen Merton’s health authority has slump to the bottom of a management league table.

A health journal chart which ranks governance at Britain’s primary care trusts (PCTs), based on reports by Government inspectors, placed crisis-hit Sutton and Merton PCT 140th out of 144.

The fall of 73 places from last year’s World Class Commissioning table leaves the trust as the health equivalent of the Burmese football team, who sit just behind Fiji and Swaziland at the same position in the world rankings.

Sutton and Merton PCT was assessed in March this year, when inspectors called for greater “managerial rigour” and warned of financial problems. The trust’s chief executive has since faced calls from Wimbledon MP Stephen Hammond to step down, after news that long-awaited hospital redevelopments in Merton might be scaled back or scrapped because of cash shortages.

The table was published last month by magazine Health Service Journal. A spokesman for the trust said the inspectors had provided “useful feedback”, and as a result a £28m better value programme had been developed to save cash. They also said inspectors had praised strong clinical leadership at the trust.