The much-vaunted franchising scheme designed to transform failing trusts has met with little enthusiasm from chief executives of the three-star trusts who could be asked to sign up.
Of 10 'three-star trust' bosses contacted by HSJ, none said they were ready to enter a franchise arrangement - many arguing that running one trust was enough.
NHS Confederation chief executive Stephen Thornton said none of the chief executives he had spoken to privately had been keen on the idea either. 'This is not franchising in the classic sense, where you would have a pre-determined product that you want to offer like a Big Mac. There is no manual that tells you how to be a highperforming chief executive that you can transfer from one trust to another. At the moment it is in danger of being a gimmick.'
David Wilson, chief executive of Northampton General Hospital, said: 'Turning round trusts is the task of keeping people in the organisation going, keeping people's confidence up. But whether putting in a completely new team is a good idea - I am still not clear how it is going to work.'
A spokesperson for the Department of Health said: 'We wouldn't expect any trust chief executives to come forward at the moment. The franchising scheme is here and it is here to stay. We want to spread the talents of the best managers in the NHS, but it would be totally inappropriate to say how many people we want to sign up to the scheme.'
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