Royal Liverpool bid for foundation status reactivated

The application has been restarted after the trust reached financial close in December on a £429m private finance initiative deal to demolish and rebuild its main hospital site.

Royal Liverpool has also been inspected by the Care Quality Commission as part of the latter’s new inspection regime – a prerequisite to move forward in the application process.

However, to be granted foundation trust status, Monitor needs to receive “robust assurance” from the CQC that it is providing good quality care, and the CQC has not yet formally given this assurance.

Speaking at Monitor’s board meeting this week, the regulator’s director of assessment Miranda Carter said that while “final confirmation” had not been received from the CQC, Monitor was undertaking “phase 1” of its assessment work.

This includes quality governance assessment, review of cost improvement programmes, strategy review and testing the financial forecast.

Ms Carter said completion of this work now would allow Monitor to “continue on with the rest of the process” if the “right satisfaction” was received from the CQC.

In a statement, the trust said it hoped a decision would be made on its foundation trust application by the autumn.