The five Adult Acute and Specialist NHS Trusts in Liverpool have agreed to integrate our Trusts into a city-wide hospital Group and will be developing a long-term strategy for healthcare services in Liverpool over the next few years.

Liverpool University Hospitals NHS FT and Liverpool Women’s NHS FT announced recently that they will come together in group form from 1 November 2024 and this will be called NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group (UHLG).

The indicative timescales for integrating all five organisations into NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group (UHLG) have been agreed and will take place over the following years:

  • 2024/25 – Liverpool University Hospitals NHS FT and Liverpool Women’s NHS FT
  • 2025/26 – Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS FT
  • 2026/27 – The Walton Centre NHS FT
  • 2027/28 – The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS FT.

Representatives from each of the five Trusts sit on the Liverpool Adult Acute and Specialist Providers (LAASP) joint committee which will oversee delivery of this integration roadmap whilst also developing a five-year strategy to meet the following collective ambitions:

  • Improve pathways for patients and reduce duplication and fragmentation between our organisations
  • Work together to improve patient safety and experience by aligning co-dependent services in a better way, reducing risk and the movement of patients between hospitals
  • Move toward the implementation of a single electronic patient record and digital strategy
  • Develop a research and innovation strategy which brings the knowledge and experience of all our organisations together to focus on a smaller number of big ambitions
  • Increase effectiveness and efficiency by creating shared services for key corporate support functions
  • Make the best use of collective resources to lower the operating cost of the acute hospital system in Liverpool in order to invest in the future.

This joint decision by the five Trusts is in line with the direction of travel nationally, regionally, and locally. Providers across the country are being encouraged to work together more closely, where it makes sense to do so, to better meet the needs of patients.

David Flory CBE, Chair of the LAASP Joint Committee said: “There is now an unprecedented opportunity for our five Trusts to work together collaboratively for the benefit of our patients. The ambition of the LAASP Joint Committee members is for the NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group (UHLG) to become one of the leading groups of healthcare providers globally, delivering the best care for patients in a research intensive and innovative environment. Taking the best of all our individual organisations’ strengths today and collaborating with a clear focus on tomorrow, working together for all the patients we serve locally, regionally, and nationally, will enable us to achieve this.”

Individual, organisation-specific integration plans will be developed at each stage of the roadmap. Colleagues from each Trust will be engaged and involved in designing their respective plans.  Whilst the principle of joining the Group has been agreed, the insights and input from colleagues at each Trust who have the detailed knowledge of how services operate, will be essential in defining how this works in the future.