Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust is the principal healthcare provider to 258,000 people across Southport, Formby and West Lancashire.
Services
The Trust provides care at Southport and Formby District General Hospital and Ormskirk and District General Hospital. In 2018/19, 2,250 babies were born at the maternity unit at Ormskirk hospital. The Trust is the home of the North West Regional Spinal Injuries Centre which provides care for spinal patients from across the North West, North Wales and the Isle of Man. The centre provides treatment of people who require permanent mechanical ventilation following spinal cord injury. In 2018 the CQC identified that it suffered from inadequate leadership and downgraded it to a status of "requires improvement" provides services from clinics in Bootle and Southport town centre. A specialist for patients registered with GPs in Chorley and South Ribble operates from Pimbo, near Skelmersdale.
Performance
The Trust was rated "requires improvement" following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission in November 2017. The Trust published its at the annual general meeting held at Southport hospital in September 2018. Despite seven CEO's in 4 years and suspension of senior management the Trust continues to suffer major problems including bullying with one in five nursing staff reporting it. The Trust was recently identified as one of the worst in the country for patients undergoing orthopaedic surgery. Patients undergoing hip joint replacement surgery in this hospital were much more likely to need major revision surgery than if performed elsewhere in the UK.
History
In 1948 there were seven hospitals in Southport: Southport General Infirmary, the Promenade Hospital, Greaves Hall Hospital, Fleetwood Road Hospital, New Hall Hospital run by Ramsay Health Care UK and, for maternity services, St Katherine’s and the Christiana Hartley unit. The present organisation was formed from the merger of acute hospital services in Southport and Ormskirk in 1999. NHS community services were acquired from the former NHS Sefton and NHS Central Lancashire primary care trusts in April 2011. The trust's adult community care and walk-in service contracts in West Lancashire were awarded to Virgin Care in autumn 2016. The Southport and Formby contracts were awarded to Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust. Both contracts become effective from May 2017. Chief executive Jonathan Parry, Chief Operating Officer Sheilah Finnegan, and Sharon Partington, Director of Human Resources, were all excluded from work inAugust 2015 after complaints by whistleblowers relating to a "serious employment issue". Partington subsequently resigned. Parry was dismissed and Finnegan was cleared but retired. In September 2019 the trust appointed Trish Armstrong-Child as its seventh chief executive in four years.
