What are the advantages to becoming a Foundaton Trust?
We believe that we can use Foundation Trust status to benefit our service users, carers, staff and the organisation as a whole. If we did not seek Foundation Trust status our future as a separate NHS organisation would be in serious doubt. Many organisations are well on the way to becoming, or are already, Foundation Trusts. Their resulting strengthened focus on service quality, improvement and development means that service users might choose to use services that they provide, rather than those provided by 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Trust. Unlike current NHS Trusts, a Foundation Trust is able to borrow and invest funds and has minimum three year contracts with commissioners rather that the annual contracts that we have been used to. This will, allow the Trust to make decisions about how services are run with the benefit of known funding. Foundation Trusts can enter formal partnerships and joint ventures with other organisations outside the NHS – such as voluntary organisations or hous
