FINANCE: The main provider of acute healthcare for the armed forces is predicting a significant fall in Ministry of Defence income as the UK scales back its deployment in Afghanistan.
University Hospitals Birmingham Foundation Trust runs Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which treats seriously injured personnel returning to the UK.
The trust over-performed on its £5.8m MoD contract by £3.9m in 2010-11.
Birmingham’s three-year strategy document submitted to Monitor said the prediction for this financial year was for the out-turn to remain at the contracted level, describing the additional income in 2010-11 as “significant non-recurrent over-performance”.
The government is committed to a withdrawal of the 9,500 British troops from a combat role in Afghanistan by 2015.
University Hospitals Birmingham had a total income of £535m in 2010-11 and is host to the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine. The centre was opened in 2001 and now employs 600 doctors, nurses, therapists and support staff.
Other trusts hope to offer services to the military soon.
In February the boards of the Oxford Radcliffe and Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre signalled their intention to bid for MoD contracts in the future.
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