South Staffordshire and Shropshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Frank Dobson
To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) when South Staffordshire NHS Trust applied to Monitor for foundation status;

(2) when Monitor (a) began and (b) completed its intensive assessment of the application for foundation status by South Staffordshire NHS Trust;

(3) when Monitor granted foundation status to South Staffordshire NHS Trust;

(4) if he will place in the Library a copy of Monitor’s assessment of the arrangements made by the board of South Staffordshire NHS Trust for monitoring and continuously improving the quality healthcare provided to the hospitals patients.

Mr. Bradshaw
We are informed by the chairman of Monitor (the statutory name of which is the independent regulator of NHS foundation trusts) that the trust wrote to Monitor to formally apply for NHS foundation trust (NHS FT) status on 23 January 2006.

Monitor began its assessment work on 25 January 2006 when the 'kick-off meeting was arranged with the trust, and completed its work on 24 April 2006 which was the date of the decision board.

South Staffordshire and Shropshire NHS FT was authorised on 1 May 2006.

The requirement for an assessment of arrangements for monitoring and continuously improving the quality of healthcare, which is set out in appendix B12 of the Guide for Applicants dated November 2008, was not in place at the time of the South Staffordshire assessment in 2006. Therefore it is not possible to place this in the Library.