As you know, Liverpool’s five adult acute and specialist providers have been working together since last year on plans to develop a shared strategy and form a city-wide hospital group: NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group (UHL Group).
Our individual hospitals have strong identities, distinct cultures and provide excellent care for patients each year. This will continue. Working as one Group will help us improve the things that don’t work as well while retaining the things that are great and can further strengthen our clinical services and benefit patients.
This work has been progressing well and we all share an unwavering commitment to do things differently – to be bold, think big and be really ambitious about how we can deliver the best healthcare for our patients now and in the future. We are building on strong foundations and, together, we are forming a clear vision for the future.
Revised timeline for forming UHL Group
Our reasons for becoming a Group have not changed – over the last few months, though, it has become clear that we can, and should, now accelerate our plans by bringing all five organisations into the new Group over the course of 2025/26, rather than over several years.
As you know, the Group already includes Liverpool University Hospitals and Liverpool Women’s. The new timeline for the others to join is expected to be:
• Q2 (by Sep 2025): Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital
• Q3 (by Dec 2025): The Walton Centre
• Q4 (by Mar 2026): The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre
Our shared Group Board will focus on our overall strategy and decisions that affect us all. It’s important, however, that the hospitals retain their autonomy and are led by people who are based on site and directly connected to the patients, staff and services there:
• We will confirm membership of the new Group Board and the individual hospital leadership teams over the next two months.
• The UHL Group Board will comprise Hospital Executive Managing Directors plus Group Corporate roles alongside non-executive directors.
• There is a desire and commitment to ensure that the Board has the knowledge and experience of each hospital within the group represented at board level to ensure all hospitals have a voice around the board table.
Hospital leadership teams
The aim is for hospitals to be run by their own Hospital Management Boards, responsible for around 4,000 to 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 April 2026, the Hospital Management Boards (HMBs) will comprise:
• Aintree and The Walton Centre
• Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital and Broadgreen
• The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre and Diagnostics
• Royal Liverpool (including the Dental Hospital)
• Liverpool Women’s Hospital – this may be amended in future to reflect any recommendations from NHS Cheshire and Merseyside’s current review of maternity and gynaecology services in Liverpool
Corporate services
Corporate and non-clinical staff play a vital role in supporting clinical colleagues as well as helping our organisations run smoothly. It’s important that we have the right teams and structures in place for the new Group and our hospitals.
By coming together as one Group, we can think differently about how corporate services are provided collectively, creating new workforce models that will be more resilient and more efficient.
We will work on corporate service models with the relevant teams over the next few months to create certainty for everyone as soon as we can. HR teams will work very closely with unions and staffside representatives to ensure we are doing the right thing for our staff and organisations.
Advantages of the new timeline
There are many advantages to this:
• We can start achieving the benefits more quickly from being a Group.
• It creates certainty sooner for everyone.
• It will also make it easier for everyone to work as one and reach the right decisions on the things that affect us all, while keeping autonomy over the things that are specific to particular organisations or sites.
• Sharing one Group Board will reduce the inevitable duplication and delays that come with having separate Trust Boards, while the new hospital management boards will have local decision-making powers.
Group model benefits
Our individual hospitals will retain, their own unique identities, cultures and strengths.
We have outstanding, expert and caring staff who deliver their best every day. Our reputations help us attract and retain talent from across the globe, as well as our local communities.
And we can be even stronger together as one Group that values each member equally:
• We can develop a shared strategy and clear vision for how clinical services are delivered, focusing on what makes most sense now and for the future.
• We can make clinical pathways – including complex diagnostic testing and lab analysis – smoother by reducing duplication and referrals between different hospitals. This will benefit patients and staff.
• Our scale as one combined Group will make us a highly attractive proposition for research and innovation and income-generating opportunities. It will strengthen our hand in negotiations with suppliers and potential partners.
• We can achieve the greatest benefit from our individual strengths and talents – for example, by building on the commercial, research or educational successes in one hospital so they can be offered across the Group.
• It will help us develop a shared electronic patient record and greater digital integration, making it easier for clinical teams to access the information they need without delays. Patients won’t need to have duplicate tests or reshare their details at different hospitals because clinicians will have access to their records.
• We can deliver corporate and support services more effectively, efficiently and resiliently by working as one team, with some shared Group-wide roles and appropriate local site-based roles.
• Staff education, training and career progression will be greater as one Group. The Group will provide opportunities for staff to move between hospitals when they want to change roles or broaden their experience.
Next steps
We will keep people updated on progress with our University Hospitals of Liverpool Group: Stronger Together programme.