£2 billion spent on hospital mergers ‘despite little evidence of benefits’

By The Press Association23rd September 2015News EnglandNews England, NHS

Some £2 billion has been spent on 12 hospital mergers in the past five years despite little evidence they work, according to a report.

Mergers are designed to help NHS trusts in financial difficulty or those seeking foundation trust status.

The King’s Fund think-tank reviewed 20 mergers of NHS trusts between 2010 and 2015.

The vast majority of these were ordered by the financial regulator Monitor, the NHS Trust Development Authority or special administrators.

The study found that, in many cases, “there was no clear rationale for the merger, with serious weaknesses in the assessment of alternative options and the articulation of the case for merger”.

Researchers said mergers were pursued despite growing evidence that they do not deliver the benefits hoped for.

There is also little recognition of the disadvantages of creating larger, much more complex organisations.

Furthermore, there is evidence that mergers act as a barrier to delivering changes to services.

The report found that most of the funding was spent on writing down debts, covering deficits and capital investment, rather than on delivering service changes that would make the the merged organisations sustainable.

It said mergers seem to be pursued as a way of secure financing that would otherwise not be available.

Ben Collins, project director at the King’s Fund and author of the report, said: “Recent NHS history is scattered with the remains of failed, or at least profoundly troubled, mergers.”

He added: “Instead of promoting mergers, NHS leaders should focus on developing alternative solutions that address the underlying causes of the problems facing struggling hospitals.”