THE TRUST which runs Solihull Hospital has been given the go ahead to merge with its Birmingham counterpart, it has been announced.
The Heart of England Foundation Trust (HEFT), which runs Solihull, Good Hope and Heartlands hospitals, as well as the Chest Clinic, can now officially join forces with University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) to create one trust running all of them and the trusts’ satellite services in a bid to improve its provision across the board.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found that, whilst the merger between HEFT and UHB could give rise to competition concerns across a number of elective specialties, these were outweighed by the substantial improvements to patient care that were expected to arise.
In reaching this view, the CMA has placed significant weight on the advice on probable benefits from NHS Improvement, the sector regulator, which strongly supports the merger.
The merger will therefore not be referred for an in-depth investigation.
