Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust

The Trust provides care at Southport and Formby District General Hospital and Ormskirk and District General Hospital.[1] In 2018/19, 2,250 babies were born at the maternity unit at Ormskirk hospital.

The Trust is the home of the North West Regional Spinal Injuries Centre[2] which provides care for spinal patients from across the North West, North Wales and the Isle of Man. The centre provides treatment of people who require permanent mechanical ventilation following spinal cord injury.

Sefton Sexual Health[3] provides services from clinics in Bootle and across the borough of Sefton.

A specialist Wheelchair Service[4] for patients registered with GPs in Chorley and South Ribble operates from Pimbo, near Skelmersdale.

The Trust was rated "requires improvement" following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission in November 2019. Further information about the Trust can be found in its annual reports. The Trust was recently identified as one of the worst in the country for patients undergoing orthopaedic surgery. Patients undergoing hip joint replacement surgery in this hospital were much more likely to need major revision surgery than if performed elsewhere in the UK.[5][6][7]

In 1948 there were seven hospitals in Southport: Southport General Infirmary, the Promenade Hospital, Greaves Hall Hospital, Fleetwood Road Hospital, New Hall Hospital run by Ramsay Health Care UK and, for maternity services, St Katherine’s and the Christiana Hartley unit.

The present organisation was formed from the merger of acute hospital services in Southport and Ormskirk in 1999.

NHS community services were acquired from the former NHS Sefton and NHS Central Lancashire primary care trusts in April 2011.

The trust's adult community care and walk-in service contracts in West Lancashire were awarded to Virgin Care in autumn 2016. The Southport and Formby contracts were awarded to Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust. Both contracts became effective from May 2017.[8]

Chief executive Jonathan Parry, Chief Operating Officer Sheilah Finnegan, and Sharon Partington, Director of Human Resources, were all excluded from work in August 2015 after complaints by whistleblowers relating to a "serious employment issue".[9] Partington subsequently resigned. Parry was dismissed and Finnegan was cleared but retired.[10]

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