Trust loses £26m arbitration with commissioners

Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust had been in dispute with its three local CCGs over the 2017-18 contract.

The £500m turnover trust is in financial special measures and ended 2017-18 with a deficit of £48.9m after predicting breakeven.

Its income comes mostly from CCGs, with £391m paid in 2016-17.

The disputed sum will now have to be added to the trust’s 2018-19 financial plan. The process began in March after the trust rejected the result of a local mediation process. NHS England would not confirm what other arbitration processes had taken place concerning 2017-18 finances. 

In November, HSJ reported the findings from arbitration between Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust and NHS England, which NHS England lost. NHS England tried to keep the result secret but accidentally emailed it out.

The east London provider saw its interim finance director leave at the end of June and recently saw a damning report into its financial governance, largely covering a period while current chief executive Matthew Hopkins was off following a kidney transplant.

The trust is currently working on agreeing a control total with NHS Improvement for a deficit position understood to be between £52.5m and £64.5m.

HSJ understands a further review of the trust’s performance and governance from Deloitte was commissioned by NHS Improvement and will be published later this year.

A Care Quality Commission report published last month gave the trust an inadequate rating on the new “use of resources” rating.

A joint statement from BHRUT and BHR CCGs said: ”We are pleased that the expert determination process has now concluded… The CCGs and trust will work together to translate the findings into an agreed contractual position for 2017-18, this financial year and beyond.”