Hospital trusts needed financial help last year to fend off legal threats from suppliers, update “obsolete” medical equipment and even keep electricity supplies flowing, according to a raft of pleas for bailouts seen by HSJ.
Details of these and other requests for financial assistance were released to HSJ under the Freedom of Information Act by the independent trust finance facility, which is part of the Department of Health.
The pleas lay bare the extent of financial pressure on some of England’s hardest pressed trusts. HSJ has seen details of 15 loan requests to ease short term financial cash flows.