Thursday, June 16, 2011

Market Harborough hospital scandal deepens

Regular readers will know all about the problems with the new unit at St Luke's Hospital, Market Harborough.

Yesterday there was a meeting between local councillors and senior officers from Leicestershire County and Rutland Primary Care Trust to discuss what has gone wrong.

According to the Leicester Mercury report:
Trust chief executive Catherine Griffiths admitted the contract had been signed without a bank guarantee in place and without financial diligence checks being carried out.

Finance director Sue Bishop admitted the bank bond put in place after the mistake had been noticed ran out on March 31 and that the trust would have to foot the bill to complete the building. She would not say how much it would cost.
The councillors were not impressed. Liberal Democrat Phil Knowles said: "I am astonished at the catalogue of mistakes." And Conservative Kevin Feltham said: "It is worse than we thought. There is serial failure here."

From what I hear, there are also serious questions to be answered about why the contract was ever placed with these contractors in the first place.

No comments: