The process

The Trust has appointed external specialists (Deloitte) and legal advisors (Wragge & Co) who are currently advising the Trust on the acquisition process to ensure it is fully compliant with all the rules and regulations surrounding acquisition.

The Trust acquisition process has been designed to provide the best solution for the population of north Cumbria (the 'Objective'). This involves limited competition based on the Trust's assessment of those Foundation Trusts which can realistically achieve 'the Objective'. The assessment of interest from Foundation Trusts will be on the basis of appropriate evaluation criteria linked to our Strategic Aims in conjunction with a separate financial assessment designed to meet 'the Objective'.

The Trust has therefore, made a commitment to all organisations that we will:

• Ensure the process is swiftly and effectively managed with a clear identification of a preferred acquirer in a reasonable timeframe
• Run a process that is fair and transparent and, as there has been more than one Foundation Trust expressing an interest in acquiring the Trust, ensure that the process allows equal access and consideration for all respective parties
• Take into consideration the wide varying views of a broad range of external stakeholders who are keenly interested in the transaction
• Provide sufficient time post-selection of a preferred Foundation Trust acquirer for a detailed and full acquisition and integration planning phase

What's happened so far

The process for acquisition has involved the evaulation of the non-financial and supplementary financial questions submitted by both interested bidders together with feedback from a key stakeholder event, involving hospital staff (clinical and non-clinical); local GPs, patients and and local community groups representing patients.

Key Tasks

Tasks	Timescale
Internal discussions on evaluation requirements and questions to ask FT bidders	Complete
FT gathers responses to questions	Complete
NCUH provides financial and non-financial information for FTs	Complete
Trust internal evaluation of FR responses	Complete
Clarification with FTs to ensure responses are clear and understood	Complete
Moderation and finalised analysis	Complete
FT meetings with External Stakeholder Group	Complete
FT meetings with Trust Board	Complete
NCUH Trust Board decision on the partner or partners to move to the next stage of formal tendering	Complete

The FTs which expressed an interest in the transaction were:

• Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust 
• ‘A Partnership with Newcastle in Cumbria’ which is an ‘alliance’ between Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The process was designed to:

• Be fair, transparent and competitive allowing equal access and consideration for all respective parties
• Consider two key areas: financial and non-financial. The non-financial evaluation is based on 8 strategic aims developed through a series of workshops which involved some 40-45 leading clinicians and operational managers from the Trust and primary care (see Appendix 1)
• Involve our Commissioners through NHS Cumbria
• Provide information on the outputs of the evaluation process to the external stakeholders including the External Stakeholder Group, primary care clinicians and Clinical Commissioning leads

The Trust retains flexibility to amend the process where necessary to achieve this objective; however consideration of wide and varying views of a broad range of external stakeholders has been designed into the process.