Merging of PFI trusts advised as way to meet growing pressure

Two acute trusts with controversial private finance initiative hospitals, one of them still to open, must merge to meet pressure on services, a review of acute and emergency services in County Durham and Darlington has recommended.

County Durham health authority commissioned the review by government surgery adviser Professor Ara Darzi to advise on clinically sustainable options for acute service provision in the light of increased pressure on services, while ensuring a 'successful future' for its three acute hospitals.

Both prime minister Tony Blair and health secretary Alan Milburn have their constituencies in the area.

The review recommends that South Durham Healthcare trust - with Darlington Memorial Hospital and the PFI-funded Bishop Auckland General Hospital due to open in April - should merge with North Durham Healthcare trust, where University Hospital of North Durham, a six-month-old PFI hospital, has been experiencing 'significant pressure on services'.

The aim is to develop 'interdependence' between the sites, but allow each to retain 'a strong core service and its own identity as a provider of high-quality specialist care'. Professor Darzi also calls for Bishop Auckland, built 'primarily as a medical hospital' to have an elective surgery centre focusing on orthopaedics and urology.

Unison northern regional officer Trevor Johnston criticised the process which had led to the review: 'We objected to the PFI deal [at the University Hospital of North Durham] because it wasn't big enough and had fewer beds.

All this money has gone to the private sector from it, and what have we got for it? A mess.'

But County Durham HA chief executive Ken Jarrold said: 'Ara Darzi has given us a way forward that achieves a good balance between local access to services, which is important in a predominantly rural area with small urban centres, and a degree of centralisation and interdependence That is important for clinical quality.'