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Integration

University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust (UHDB) was formed on 1 July 2018 to bring together our 5 hospitals – in Derby, Burton, Lichfield and Tamworth.

Our aim is to deliver outstanding care for local people in Southern Derbyshire and South-East Staffordshire through the expertise of our 12,000 staff.


Who we are

Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (DTHFT) and Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (BHFT) have merged to become a new organisation – University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust.
 

  • DTHFT provided care for around 600,000 people around Southern Derbyshire over two sites – the Royal Derby Hospital and the Florence Nightingale Community Hospital – with over 8,500 staff.
     
  • BHFT provided services for around 360,000 people in Burton Upon Trent and South Staffordshire. As well as Queen’s Hospital in Burton, it ran the Sir Robert Peel Hospital in Tamworth and the Samuel Johnson Hospital in Lichfield with over 3,000 staff in total.


The case for change

Bringing teams together and creating a larger Trust will mean:

  • improved local access to services
  • reduced costs and higher savings
  • career growth opportunities and increased clinical activity for staff


Changes to clinical services

Our priority is to ensure that all clinical services continue to operate safely and effectively. However, over time we will be able to make the changes we need to realise all of the benefits for our patients, and continue to improve the opportunities for our staff. Some services have already been reviewed in detail so that we can start to make some of these changes more quickly.
 

Cancer care

A number of the clinical teams that diagnose and treat cancer at Derby and Burton will merge into one team. This will help to improve job satisfaction by sharing best practice amongst clinicians, and enabling larger on-call rotas. Benefits for patients include:

  • Shorter travel times as services are provided more locally
  • More streamlined diagnostics for cancer patients
  • A bigger and more sustainable service will help us recruit and retain talented staff

Cardiology

We will provide a single cardiology service with consultants working across both Burton and Derby hospital sites. This will mean care closer to home, including the fitting of pacemakers, and ensure that patients can receive more treatments in one place without the need for further referrals.

Other benefits include:

  • Access to services 7 days a week
  • Both sites will be able to provide a fuller range of cardiac services
  • Better ‘out of hours‘ cover

Orthopaedics

The orthopaedic department will become a larger, more resilient unit to compete with other large organisations nearby. The combined team will provide services across a wider range of locations and will support quality and productivity improvements, reduced waiting times and improved satisfaction for both patients and staff.

They will also provide:

  • Better patient experience with more streamlined processes
  • Specialist services on your doorstep

Radiology

The proposed new cross site structures will reduce variation in how radiologists work, providing patients with a more consistent service.  Other benefits include:

  • Weekend access will improve due to increased capacity
  • Reduced waiting times
  • Improvements to cancer diagnostics
  • Recruitment and retention of our increasingly talented staff will become easier

Renal medicine

The merged Trust will expand the high-quality renal service currently provided in Derby – one of the leading renal medicine units in the country – to patients across the combined Burton and Derby area. This will bring real benefits to patients:

  • Reduction in undiagnosed acute kidney injury due to better diagnostic skills
  • Improved outcomes for dialysis patients
  • Time savings and quality of life benefits arising from having home dialysis

Stroke service

We propose to deliver a Hyper Acute Stroke Unit for the Burton population at the Royal Derby Hospital. After this time patients would be discharged home or transferred to Burton to complete their care and receive rehabilitation in an enhanced service. This would bring a number of benefits:

  • Improved clinical outcomes as 24/7 hyper acute services are available to a larger population of patient
  • Improved access to weekend clinics
  • Patients will also get access to specialist consultant care 7 days a week
  • Reduced waiting times and lengths of stay
  • Better survival rates as patients have 24-hour access to a full stroke service