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THE WAY NHS HOSPITAL SERVICES ARE ORGANISED IN THE CITY IS BEING SIGNIFICANTLY CHANGED 14:34, 21 May 2025Updated 15:30, 21 May 2025 The timeline for when major changes to NHS hospitals in
Liverpool will come into effect has been revealed. Last year it was confirmed that the city's five acute and specialist NHS Hospital trusts would be brought into a single group in what
would constitute a huge change for the way health services are delivered in the city. Liverpool University Hospitals trust - which already includes the Royal Liverpool, Aintree and
Broadgreen hospitals - had already brought Liverpool Women's Hospital Trust into a group now referred to as the NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group. But it was also revealed
that the city's other specialist trusts would join this group in the coming years. Those other trusts include The Walton Centre (for Neurology and Neurosurgery), Liverpool Heart and
Chest Hospital and the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre. An initial timeline for bringing the other trusts into the new group planned for Liverpool Heart and Chest to join in 2025/26, The Walton
Centre in 2026/27 and for The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre would join in 2027/28. But in a new update released to staff today, health chiefs said they are now accelerating these plans. This
will mean that Liverpool Heart and Chest will join the wider group by September of this year, with The Walton Centre joining by December and The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre becoming part of
the group by March next year. Article continues below The notice added that over the next two months the identities of who will sit on a new group board as well as the individual trust
leadership teams will be confirmed. The new University Hospitals of Liverpool group board will be made up of hospital executive managing directors as well as group corporate roles alongside
non-executive directors. The aim of the new group is for individual hospitals to be run by their own management boards, responsible for between 4,000 and 6,000 staff and a turnover of around
£400m to £600m each year. Hospitals will retain their names and individual identities even if they have the same management board. From 2026, the individual management boards will include
Aintree and The Walton Centre, Liverpool Heart and Chest and Broadgreen, The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre and Diagnostics, The Royal Liverpool (including The Dental Hospital). The current
plan is for Liverpool Women's Hospital to retain its own management board, but the notice makes clear this could be changed as NHS Cheshire and Merseyside continues with its
controversial review of maternity and gynaecology services in the city. The notice adds: "Although forming the group was already something that we had agreed would be right for patients
and for the future sustainability of our organisations, the scale of the financial challenge facing the NHS has become even clearer in recent months. "All NHS organisations have been
directed to take every step possible to reduce costs – including corporate overheads – and improve efficiency by transforming how they work. "Accelerating our plans for NHS University
Hospitals of Liverpool Group (UHL Group) will help address this financial challenge as well as achieving the clinical benefits more quickly from being one group." Article continues
below The plans are subject to NHS England review.