Becoming a Foundation Trust - the challenges and opportunities for Great Ormond Street Hospital Breakfast Seminar

June’s Care Conversation event heard Great Ormond Street Hospital Chief Executive Dr Jane Collins describe the challenges and opportunities of becoming a Foundation Trust.

‘We want to be a Foundation Trust but it’s been difficult,’ Great Ormond Street Hospital Chief Executive Dr Jane Collins told delegates at the latest Care Conversation event. The organisation had delayed its previous application while it addressed financial issues brought about by funding changes and intended to apply for Foundation Trust status later this year despite the additional challenges of the recession, she said.

Great Ormond Street’s philosophy was ‘the child first and always’ and its aim was to be one of the top five children’s hospital’s in the world, she said. ‘We concentrate on children with complex conditions, many of them life threatening. Almost all of our referrals come from other hospitals rather than GPs.’ The hospital housed the broadest range of dedicated children’s healthcare specialists under one roof in the UK as well as being the largest trainer of children’s healthcare professionals in the country, she told delegates. It is also home to the UK’s only academic biomedical research centre specialising in children’s health, with research as important to the organisation as high quality care.