HOSPITAL bosses say patients are benefitting after the £22million Stratford Hospital was sold to a company which now leases it back to them.
The state-of-the-art hospital was sold by South Warwickshire Foundation Trust (SWFT) to its subsidiary company South Warwickshire Foundation Trust Clinical Services shortly after it opened in 2017.
SWFT now has a 25 year lease on the hospital costing nearly £1million a year – and has a buy back option at the end of the contract.
Clinical Services – which has been a wholly owned subsidiary of SWFT since 2010 – also runs an outpatient pharmacy at Warwick Hospital, a continence service and estate management service at Stratford Hospital, and provides financial consultancy support to SWFT and other NHS trusts.
It also owns the private Stratford Clinic in the town which it plans to move to Stratford Hospital this month.
SWFT say the company undertakes commercial activities which benefit patients at SWFT’s hospitals in Warwick, Stratford, Leamington and Shipston, and within the community.
Currently Clinical Services is run by eight directors, six of who are also directors at SWFT and one at Nuneaton’s George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust – which shares the same respective trust chief executive and chairman in Glen Burley and Russell Hardy, although neither of them are on the board of Clinical Services.
In 2018 the directors of Clinical Services were paid a combined £155,000.
The accounts of Clinical Services – which employs 30 staff – have now been now merged with those of SWFT.
In the last financial year SWFT and Clinical Services combined had a surplus of just over nearly £18million, although Clinical Services alone lost £1.2million due to a reported reduction in the value of Stratford Hospital.
But SWFT finance director Kim Li – who is also a director of Clinical Services – maintained that despite the loss in the past year Clinical Services had an important role to play in the future financial stability of SWFT.
She said: “The trust made the decision to sell Stratford land and buildings (Stratford Hospital) as the company was best placed to effectively manage this new facility so the trust could focus on the delivery of its core business which is to deliver healthcare.
“We are proud to have consistently reported a financial surplus in recent years, something that is unfortunately increasingly rare in the NHS.
“Clinical Services is one of the ways we have generated income that contributes to this financial stability. This economic performance is crucial because it enables us to continue to provide high quality care despite increasing demand for services.”