On Tuesday 1 October, the Trust caring for a population of around 630,000 people in Merseyside came into operation, following the merger of Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust.
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is responsible for managing services at Aintree University Hospital, Broadgreen Hospital, Liverpool Dental Hospital and the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. Each individual hospital will retain its name and proud heritage.
Bringing together a combined workforce of over 12,000 staff, the Trust has become the largest NHS employer in Merseyside and Cheshire. As well as providing general hospital services to people in Merseyside, the Trust will provide a range of highly specialist services to more than two million people in the North West and beyond.
This merger provides a monumental opportunity to address the serious health challenges we face as a community, to improve care and provide sustainable services for people across Merseyside.
Plans to merge were developed and supported by doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals at both Trusts who believe the merger will enable them to improve care for patients and enhance our appeal in terms of clinical research, ensuring we continue to provide the latest drugs and treatments for our patients.
Evidence shows that highly complex and specialist procedures are more successful when teams are performing them more often. This can only be achieved by providing specialist services to a wider group of patients.
Merging the two trusts is vital to ensuring that we continue to provide these specialist services to the people of Merseyside. Safeguar the services and ensuring they remain and grow here is vital to providing excellent, quality care.
Over time, there are plans to look at how individual services are delivered. As with any major changes proposed for the future, proposals will be discussed in detail with patients, the public and local communities to understand their views and use this information to assess the potential impacts of the improvements. This will be done before making any final decisions.
However, patients will see very few changes to begin with and for the time being services will remain the same. We encourage all patients to attend appointments at their given hospital as normal, and would wish to reassure all patients that they will still be seeing the same staff