The Bolton NHS Foundation Trust is based at the Royal Bolton Hospital in

Farnworth Farnworth is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, southeast of Bolton, 4 miles south-west of Bury (7 km), and northwest of Manchester. Within the historic county of Lancashire, Farnworth lies on ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

, England (Previously based just outside of

Bolton Bolton ( , locally ) is a town in Greater Manchester in England. In the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, Bolton is between Manchester, Blackburn, Wigan, Bury, Greater Manchester, Bury and Salford. It is surrounded by several towns and vill ...

town centre opposite Queen's Park). It provides

NHS The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

health care services for the people in the

Metropolitan Borough of Bolton The Metropolitan Borough of Bolton ( ) is a metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England, named after its largest town, Bolton, but covering a larger area which includes Blackrod, Farnworth, Horwich, Kearsley, Westhoughton, and part of ...

and surrounding areas. Prior to its acquisition of Foundation Trust status in October 2008, the trust was known as Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust. Bolton Hospitals integrated with some of the community services which were formerly part of Bolton Primary Care Trust in July 2011 to form Bolton NHS Foundation Trust. Fiona Noden, formerly chief operating officer at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, was appointed chief executive in 2020.

Services

The Trust is based on several sites across the wider

including a number of health centres and clinics, and the Royal Bolton Hospital in Farnworth. In 2017 the trust established a subsidiary company, Integrated Facilities Management Bolton Ltd, to which 550 estates and facilities staff were transferred. The intention was to achieve VAT benefits, as well as pay bill savings, by recruiting new staff on less expensive non-NHS contracts. VAT benefits arise because NHS trusts can only claim VAT back on a small subset of goods and services they buy. The

Value Added Tax Act 1994 The Value Added Tax Act 1994 (c. 23) is a UK tax law, concerning taxation of goods and services that fall within the scope of Value Added Tax (VAT). It came into force on 1 September 1994. The Value Added Tax Act 1983 was repealed and replaced by ...

provides a mechanism through which NHS trusts can qualify for refunds on contracted out services. In October 2018 staff of the company went on strike because they did not get the pay rise that staff directly employed by the NHS got.

Performance

It was named by the ''

Health Service Journal ''Health Service Journal'' (''HSJ'') is a news service that covers policy and management in the National Health Service (NHS) in England. History The '' Poor Law Officers' Journal'' was established in 1892. In 1930, it changed its name after ...

'' as one of the top hundred NHS trusts to work for in 2015. At that time it had 4554 full-time equivalent staff and a sickness absence rate of 5.08%. 64% of staff recommend it as a place for treatment and 56% recommended it as a place to work. In May 2017 it merged its hospital and community patient administration systems, 300 million rows of data and 60 million appointments, 17 million case-note activities and 26 million waiting list entries, into one system using DXC Technology systems. It featured prominently in a report by the Health Service Journal in 2020 on NHS trusts under “enhanced monitoring” by the

General Medical Council The General Medical Council (GMC) is a public body that maintains the official register of physician, medical practitioners within the United Kingdom. Its chief responsibility is to "protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the pu ...

, because of concerns from

junior doctor In the United Kingdom, a resident doctor, previously (until 2024) known as a junior doctor, is a qualified medical practitioner who is either engaged in postgraduate training or employed in a non-training post. The period of being a resident docto ...

s. Reports included consultants leaving junior doctors with insufficient support and reluctance to report concerns.

Other NHS Trusts on-site

Mental health services are provided by Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust on the Royal Bolton Hospital site, and include wards K1-3, Maple House (Psychiatric Intensive Care), Hazelwood, Redwood and Hawthorn House. Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust maintains a Renal Dialysis Unit on the hospital site. Under the "Making it Better" Best For Health website
development plan for Greater Manchester's hospitals, the Royal Bolton Hospital was one of the three sites to have specialised paediatric and neonatal services.

Education

The Trust is an Associated Teaching Hospital allied to Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, and contributes to the training of medical students from The University of Manchester. A large number of nursing students from the

University of Salford The University of Salford is a Public university, public research university in Salford, Greater Manchester, Salford, Greater Manchester, England, west of Manchester city centre. The Royal Technical Institute, Salford, which opened in 1896, be ...

train at Bolton in each of the Adult, Child and Mental Health disciplines. A small cohort of student radiographers from the

are also based at this trust.

References

External links