Appendix 1
From the office of David Flory CBE, Chief Executive
Ref: DF/MC/SPD
26 June 2014
Southside
105 Victoria Street
London
SW1E 6QT
www.ntda.nhs.uk
Dame Fiona Caldicott, Chair and Sir Jonathan Michael, Chief
Executive
The John Radcliffe
Headington
Oxford
OX3 9DU
Dear Fiona and Jonathan
Board-to-Board meeting, 9 June 2014
I am writing to thank you and your Board for a helpful Board-to-Board meeting on 9
June 2014 and to summarise the next steps.
I confirm that the FT application from Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust will be
submitted to the Board of the TDA at its meeting on 18 September 2014 with a
recommendation for you to proceed to the next stage of consideration by Monitor. This is
subject to the Trust being on track to deliver sustainable performance against the key
national service standards in Q2 2014/15.
It will be important that your Board continues to address its key risks and from our
discussion the areas for particular focus are set out below.
We congratulated the Trust on achieving a ‘Good’ rating from the Chief Inspector of
Hospitals. It reflects the hard work and commitment of all your staff to deliver excellent
patient care. It is important to ensure that the areas identified in the actions for
improvement are addressed at the earliest opportunity. The Board now needs to have the
ambition to achieve ‘Outstanding’ when you are re-inspected.
We discussed the Trust’s poor performance delivery in achieving the Accident and
Emergency national standard and there are also issues in achieving Referral to Treatment
waiting times. The Trust needs to be able to sustainably deliver the key national
performance standards in order for the NHS Trust Development Authority to refer the Trust’s
application to Monitor. It is acknowledged that the Trust has recovery plans in place to
address the performance deficits by Q2 2014/15. The Trust will need to demonstrate that
these can be achieved sustainably.
The Trust has a very strong financial position and it is noted that the Trust have agreed a
contract that will also support the CCG's financial recovery. The Trust is committed to
delivering an integrated health community solution, which maximises the health
community financial opportunity.
I understand that waiting until September is disappointing for you, but in order to maintain
momentum on your application I have requested that Monitor commence their QGAF
assessment on your Trust in the next month, which should help to reduce the time for the
assessment phase at Monitor.
I highlighted the importance of extra vigilance by the Board during the period of Monitor
assessment, to ensure that you maintain a grip on performance, proactively manage key
risks and respond effectively to the inevitable events and challenges that occur.
The TDA will continue to work with you to progress your FT application and to ensure that
we support you in your preparations through the regular oversight process. Stephen Dunn,
Delivery and Development Director - South, will be in touch to take this forward.
Thank you for the work carried out to date.
Yours sincerely
David Flory
Chief Executive
Copy:
TDA Executive Team
Crispin Simon, Non Executive Director