The planned merger of the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch and Poole hospitals trusts has been delayed to allow them to focus on responding to the coronavirus pandemic.
Their joint chief executive, Debbie Fleming, said carrying on with the July 1 deadline would have taken away clinicians from their frontline work which would have been “very wrong.”
At the same time, she also announced that the planned name of East Dorset Hospitals NHS Trust had been changed to University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust following recognition of the partnership with Bournemouth University.
The merger of the east of the county’s two main National Health Service organisations has been proposed in a bid to both cut costs and improve treatment.
As part of it, Royal Bournemouth Hospital is due to become a major emergency center with Poole Hospital focusing on planned care. This would involve substantial work at both sites and planning applications for extensions have been submitted.
Full Content: Daily Echo
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