The Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust is an NHS foundation trust in England, which is responsible for the management of the
Royal Berkshire Hospital
The Royal Berkshire Hospital (RBH) is a large NHS hospital in the town of Reading in the English county of Berkshire. It provides acute hospital services to the residents of the western and central portions of Berkshire, and is managed by the Ro ...
in
Reading, Berkshire
Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, Southeast England, southeast England. Located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers River Thames, Thames and River Kennet, Kennet, the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 mot ...
, as well as the Prince Charles Eye Unit and the Dialysis Unit, both in
Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
; Bracknell Healthspace, Townlands Hospital in
Henley-on-Thames
Henley-on-Thames ( ) is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, England, northeast of Reading, west of Maidenhead, southeast of Oxford and west of London (by road), near the tripoint of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buc ...
, and
West Berkshire Community Hospital
West Berkshire Community Hospital is a small hospital located in the Benham Hill area of Shaw-cum-Donnington, in West Berkshire, England. It is managed by Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust.
History
The hospital, established to replace the s ...
, which is between
Newbury and
Thatcham
Thatcham is an historic market town and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire, centred 3 miles (5 km) east of Newbury, 14 miles (24 km) west of Reading and 54 miles (87 km) west of London.
Geography
Thatcham straddles t ...
.
Development
In 2008 the trust established a subsidiary company, Healthcare Facilities Management Services Ltd, to run two new health centres in Bracknell and Reading. The intention was to achieve VAT benefits, as well as pay bill savings, by recruiting new staff on less expensive non-NHS contracts. VAT benefits arise because NHS trusts can only claim VAT back on a small subset of goods and services they buy. The
Value Added Tax Act 1994
The Value Added Tax Act 1994c 23 is a UK tax law, concerning taxation of goods and services that fall within the scope of Value Added Tax (VAT). It came into force on 1 September 1994. The Value Added Tax Act 1983 was repealed and replaced by this ...
provides a mechanism through which NHS trusts can qualify for refunds on contracted out services.
The trust's plans to build a pre-operative assessment block at the Reading hospital site were approved by
Reading Borough Council
Reading Borough Council is the local authority for the Borough of Reading in the English county of Berkshire. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. Berkshire is purely a ceremonia ...
in March 2015, although councillors complained that car parking at the site was "abominably managed".
In May 2020, the trust made an agreement with
Babylon Health
Babylon Health is a digital-first health service provider that combines an artificial intelligence powered platform with virtual clinical operations for patients. Patients are connected with health care professionals through its web and mobile ...
to use their 'Ask A&E'
triage
In medicine, triage () is a practice invoked when acute care cannot be provided for lack of resources. The process rations care towards those who are most in need of immediate care, and who benefit most from it. More generally it refers to prio ...
tool for a year. A longer-term partnership is under consideration.
In August 2020, Reading’s Royal Berkshire Hospital piloted an Emergency Department for elderly and frail people.
Key people
The trust's chief executive is Steve McManus, in post since January 2017. He began his NHS career as a registered nurse. In August 2020, McManus was seconded to the
NHS Test and Trace
NHS Test and Trace is a government-funded service in England, established in 2020 to track and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Despite its name, the programme was never in fact run by the NHS: the programme is part of the UK Health Secur ...
programme.
Performance
The Trust established a Hospital at Home service in 2015. Suitable patients are taken home, where a nurse will agree a care plan tailored to their condition. The average length of "stay" on the home care scheme between three and four days for each patient. It was anticipated that up to 1,600 people in West Berkshire each year would use the scheme.
In the ''End of Life Care Audit – Dying in Hospital'' carried out by the
Royal College of Physicians
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is a British professional membership body dedicated to improving the practice of medicine, chiefly through the accreditation of physicians by examination. Founded by royal charter from King Henry VIII in 1 ...
in 2016, the Trust did well, with scores between 82% and 96% across the five indicators, while the national average was between 56% and 84%.
In January 2020, the Trust was found to fail meeting its performance of the last five years in providing A&E services to patients, with thousands of patients having to wait for more than four hours to be seen in A&E.
See also
*
List of NHS trusts
This list of NHS trusts in England provides details of current and former English NHS trusts, NHS foundation trusts, acute hospital trusts, ambulance trusts, mental health trusts, and the unique Isle of Wight NHS Trust. , 217 extant trusts empl ...
References
External links
*
Care Quality Commission inspection reports
{{Authority control
NHS foundation trusts
Health in Berkshire