North West trust seeks £30m from DH for IT and air con

The trust said Monitor will present its bid, which includes a £10m loan and £20m of public dividend capital,to the DH in August.

The trust declined to provide more information about the request, which was referenced in its board papers last month, but the plans were summarised in an indicative document submitted to the independent trust financing facility last year.

The document said the trust’s IT system is considered “no longer fit for purpose” and needed a complete redesign.

The FT proposed to invest in an electronic document management system as a first step to address the “clinical and information governance risk” posed by its current paper system and ageing patient administration system.

The new system would be fully integrated with the local health economy, including community services, GPs and other acute trusts.

On the estates strategy, the document said: “The trust currently operates from a range of premises, some of which are underutilised and some of which are poor quality and no longer functionally suitable.”

It said there is “high backlog maintenance”, while the plant which enables air conditioning in the main theatres is “at the end of its operational life and regularly fails”. Much of the heating infrastructure is inefficient, performs poorly in terms of carbon emissions and requires extensive maintenance, the document said.

The trust, which submitted its plan to Monitor last year, would have to pay interest of 3.5 per cent on the public dividend capital, but the principle sum would not have to be repaid. The loan would also have an interest rate of 3.5 per cent.

The trust’s board papers for May said it ended 2014-15 with a surplus of £600,000.