Weston confirms it is not viable

Weston was the only one of 20 unsustainable trusts named by health secretary Andrew Lansley this week not to have announced plans for a merger or major reconfiguration.

However, according to the TFA, published this afternoon, the trust is aiming to submit its application for foundation trust status to the department of health in April 2013.

The TFA gives no hint of how the trust, which provides acute services and children and young people’s community and mental health services to a population of 140,000, will address its sustainability issues but reveals the trust is working with NHS South West and NHS North Somerset to agree a longer term plan which will must be submitted to the DH by the end of the year.

The trust, which has a turnover of £93m in 2010-11, recently appointed Peter Colclough, who has experience developing integrated health and social care at Torbay Care Trust, as interim chief executive.

Minutes from a recent board meeting report there is “a general consensus that there will continue to be a hospital in Weston offering emergency services and a range of other services linked increasingly closely to community and primary services and social care provisions”.

Commenting on the “strategic direction” of the trust during October’s board meeting, Mr Colclough said: “My early contact with our key partners in the NHS and North Somerset Council have reaffirmed a commitment to develop better integrated services for the people we serve.”