“It’s not a merger,” says the new head of the two Bristol hospitals

They will have the same chief executive, the same chairman of the board, they now share the same “clinical strategy” and both names are starting to appear at the bottom of the patient forms that staff members have to fill out, but those in charge of the two big hospitals of Bristol say they are not merging into one super-organisation.

Instead, North Bristol NHS Trust and University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation are part of a new type of NHS organization called a ‘hospital group’.

A “hospital group” is where closer collaboration between health chiefs and hospitals sharing the same area and often the same patients is being encouraged, if not required, by an NHS strategy introduced in the final days of the Tory government.

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But a group of hospitals is not a full merger and there are no plans for that to happen, both trusts say. They will continue to be independent organisations, with separate oversight by both NHS England and the Care Quality Commission, so will be inspected, assessed and, most importantly, funded, as separate trusts.

North Bristol NHS Trust runs Southmead Hospital, Cossham Hospital, NHS services at Frenchay, Thornbury Outpatient Clinic and Bristol Brain Centre.

UHBW runs Bristol Royal Infirmary and Bristol Royal Children’s Hospital, along with maternity services at St Michael’s, the specialist teaching hospitals attached to the University of Bristol – for dentistry, eye and ear, Weston General Hospital in Weston-super-Mare and South Bristol of Hengrove. Both organizations are among Bristol’s biggest employers and a merger between the two would be a massive logistics undertaking.

The Health and Care Act 2022 places a duty on providers to work together. There are already several NHS ‘group’ models already in place, but the one now set up in Bristol is among the largest.

There is already a long history of collaboration between BRI and Southmead, particularly in acute provision, and the new £50m Center at Southmead Hospital, announced last September, is a collaboration between the two NHS trusts, but the group “Hospital Group” above means closer ties in several areas. At the top of the organisation, the match is obvious – from early September the woman who led North Bristol will now also be chief executive of UHBW – the fourth chief executive for that trust in the last two years or so. .

And while both trusts will still have two boards, the chairman of each board will be the same.

Patients may not immediately see the impact of treatment by doctors in one ‘hospital group’, but they may start to see more cases where they are nominally a patient of one trust but receive treatment at the other.

Maria Kane was chief executive of North Bristol NHS Trust and from the end of August will also be chief executive of UHBW. When the ‘Hospital Group’ model was announced at the end of last year, she said it would allow trusts to “join forces to tackle shared challenges while retaining the flexibility to serve their unique communities”.

“These changes are crucial to unlocking significant benefits for staff and patients – improving access, experience and outcomes, tackling inequalities and supporting the wider community through the Trust’s responsibilities as anchor institutions,” a spokesman said.

A “joint clinical strategy” and then a single board chair for both trusts followed earlier this year. Being a hospital group means those in charge of Bristol’s NHS will be better able to plan ahead for what the city’s population will need in five or ten years’ time.

“Our only goal, in both organizations, is to do what’s right for our patients and their families,” said Maria Kane. “By joining forces as a hospital group, we will be able to deliver this more efficiently, make the most of our resources and deliver seamless, seamless and above all outstanding care to all who need it – regardless of their background or where they live. . It will also mean we can continue to attract and retain the best employees, giving them access to truly ‘intercity’ and wider system opportunities.

“I look forward to realizing the full potential of what we can deliver together in partnership,” she added.