The Trust welcomes your comments, and would like to hear what you thought of this year’s report. Each year the Trust aims to achieve a good balance between statutory information, and interesting articles. Your opinions will help us decide next years design and content, so please share your comments by e-mailing glyn.oakley@dvh.nhs.uk.
Trust
Tripartite Formal Agreement (TFA)
In January 2010, the Trust Board agreed for Dartford & Gravesham NHS Trust to withdraw its application to become a Foundation Trust (FT). The withdrawal was related to the impact of the NHS Operating Framework for England for 2010/11, which poses some key challenges to NHS Acute Trusts. Although the Trust’s plans to meet these challenges were viable, they left little flexibility to deal with certain ‘downside’ (i.e. worst case) scenarios. Under such scenarios, the financial metrics for the Trust did not meet the minimum required for an FT. In this context the Board recognised that the financial case for becoming an FT was no longer viable. The Government’s strong expectation is that the vast majority of NHS trusts will achieve FT status by 2014, either on their own, as part of an existing FT or in another organisational form. As part of the process for managing the transition to FT status, all NHS trusts have been required to sign a Tripartite Formal Agreement (TFA) with the Department of Health, the PCT cluster and the Strategic Health Authority. The TFA sets out the journey for each provider to become an FT. In the case of Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust, that route involves integration with an existing FT, Medway NHS Foundation Trust. The Trust that arises from the integration will be a Foundation Trust. Further information on the proposed integration can be found here.
Annual report - clinical audit
Annual report - infection control
Annual report - maternity services
