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The Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust runs the Royal United Hospital (RUH) and Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases. In 2011, the RUH applied to become authorised as an NHS foundation trust from late Spring 2012, however this was postponed after issues were raised by the Care Quality Commission about aspects of patient care. The process was restarted in 2014. It was finally authorised as a Foundation Trust in October 2014.
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It was announced in January 2015 that the Trust was to take over the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases.
Redevelopment
In 2008, plans were revealed for a £100 million redevelopment of the pre-World War II RUH North buildings, which would include an increase in single-occupancy rooms in line with Government targets. The first stage of this work was originally planned to start in 2012. In 2014 a five-year development plan, incorporating a new cancer centre, was confirmed.
Performance
By 2010, the rates of hospital acquired MRSA and Clostridium difficile infection were below the national average. In 2010, Dr Foster Hospital Guide reported that RUH mortality rates give no cause for concern.
In 2010, Which? judged that the RUH had the best hospital car parking regime in England.
It was named by the Health Service Journal as one of the top hundred NHS trusts to work for in 2015. At that time it had 3852 full time equivalent staff and a sickness absence rate of 3.85%. 75% of staff recommend it as a place for treatment and 68% recommended it as a place to work.
Maternity services
Maternity services at the RUH are operated under contract, and had not been run by the Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust since its foundation in 1992 until 1 June 2014, after the contract had been retendered for three years by the NHS Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group. The Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust had run the service immediately prior to 2014.
Criticism
The trust ran a deficit most years from 1992 to 2009, with very large deficits from 2002 to 2006, creating an historic debt of £38 million by 2008. It also received a critical Commission for Health Improvement report and zero-star rating in 2002 after a determination of "deliberate manipulation" of waiting lists. Following this the Trust terminated the Chief Executive's contract, but in a subsequent employment tribunal case the former Chief Executive was awarded £218,439 for unfair dismissal with the tribunal rejecting allegations of neglect over misreporting waiting list numbers. Progress has been made since 2006 on a plan to repay historic debt by 2013. In February 2008, a conservative peer—Lord Mancroft—made a scathing attack on nursing staff at the hospital, claiming that many nurses who looked after him were "promiscuous, lazy and grubby".