Your coverage on November 2 rightly reflected our concerns about health services in north-east Essex over the next few years.

However, your headlines, eg “£40m hospital crisis”, “Trust faces £40m cash void”, and articles did not reflect fully the action the trust and the chief executive have already taken.

In the short term, the trust will very soon be able to open the additional capacity in terms of facilities and staff, which should reduce the risks this winter, and begin to improve patient experience.

In the longer term, the NHS has been asked to plan for reductions in income of about £15bn-£20bn, and this would translate to savings of around £35m-£40m on our budget of £210m.

What should be made clear is that this would take place over the next five years – if it takes place at all. These are plans which may never be needed, as the actual funding of health services over the period has yet to be decided.

But, as with swine flu, we have to plan for all possible scenarios.

If NHS funding is reduced at this kind of level, every trust in the country will be affected. In fact, given the financial strength of Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust, we would be one of the least affected, and all around us other trusts would have far more difficult decisions to make.

Although there would be a major impact on this organisation, our contingency plans do not rest on major cuts to services or increases in waiting times; although some of these decisions would be made by the commissioners in NHS North East Essex, and not by us.

As the chief executive accepted, these are worrying times right across the NHS, with political uncertainty making planning difficult.

We are working very hard with our staff and our members’ council to ensure there is no deterioration in the service we provide to patients, even if funding becomes restricted; and we are continuing to implement our plans to improve patient care and the quality of patient experience.

If the whole of the care system locally works well together, we should be able to see out the lean years, whilst continuing to improve services.

Richard Bourne
Chairman,
Colchester Hospital
University NHS
Foundation Trust