Auditors probe future NHS costs in Shropshire

Experts have from international auditing company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have been asked to work with the Future Fit NHS review.

They will provide an independent assessment of the financial state of services across the county – and how affordable suggested changes to care are.

Future Fit is leading a review that will almost certainly lead to the closure of an A&E unit at either Telford's Princess Royal Hospital or Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

PwC will look at the financial implications of the changes to A&E. But this is only a part of a far wider review in which the company's accountants will look at the cost of NHS services across Shropshire as a whole.

NHS officials today refused to say how much PwC was being paid to audit services in Shropshire.

The move comes after the Future Fit review stalled last year as further work was needed to address a £20 million-plus deficit for health services in Shropshire.

In a paper for a meeting in Telford tomorrow, Neil Nisbet, finance director at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said: "It became clear that further work would be needed to ensure local plans for improving the quality and safety of local health services could be achieved within the financial framework for the NHS."

Mr Nisbet said PwC would provide "an independent assessment of the scale of the financial challenge".

He said Future Fit had been delayed because "it was not possible to demonstrate at that time that the proposed development plans could be afforded by the local health economy".

He added: "The next steps for the NHS Future Fit programme therefore required further work to determine how the Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin Local Health Economy can live within its means."

He said PWC was being asked to provide an income and expenditure account up to 2020/21 that "provides a consolidated assessment of the financial deficit that needs to be addressed".

PWC today refused to comment and it is not known how much it is being paid. The company started work on January 24 and a first assessment of the scale of challenge is expected to be available by mid-February, with the work completed in early March 2016.

He said the firm would create a single balance sheet to incorporate the medium term financial plans of Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust; Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust and South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. The balance sheet would also include the finances of both Shropshire and Telford's clinical commissioning groups.

The plan will be discussed at the Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee held in Addenbrooke House, Ironmasters Way, Telford, on Friday at 1.30pm.