June 5th 2025

Use the links if you wish, but they are not essential to understanding the information.

NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group Board meeting.

As members of the public, we have attended the ICB and the Liverpool Women’s Hospital Board meetings for some years and attended the NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group Board meeting on June 5th, 2025.

We heard that because the ICB was refused the funding it requested, all Cheshire and Merseyside Hospitals and many other services must change their financial plans for the worse. However, the Trusts are not allowed to reduce their planned services! This must increase pressure on the frontline NHS workforce. Staffing is a large part of all NHS spending and is crucial to patient care.

Note: “Cost Improvement Plans” are cuts. Yes, a large organisation like the NHS must be on the watch for potential savings, but the system is used to enforce cuts.

The ICB reported that “On April 30th 2025 the ICB submitted a compliant plan ( which has resulted in both the ICB and every Cheshire and Merseyside Trust provider taking on additional cost improvement requirements (resulting in an aggregate deficit across the 16 NHS providers of c£228m offset by a surplus for the ICB of £50m). This compliant plan will enable us to spend our allocation, plus the additional £178m of deficit support funding (equivalent of 2.2% of our allocation) during the 2025/26 financial period. Whilst agreeing a plan was essential to securing the deficit support and cash to underpin this, our attention must turn now to the effective delivery of the plan and effectively mitigating the risks“.

See our commentary on the May 2025 ICB board here.

We have always opposed the ICB system imposed by the 2022 Health and Social Care Act. Streeting is giving us more of the same.

We have observed how trusts negotiate their funding with the ICB. They agree on a plan for services, treatments, and the required money. It is a complex operation with oversight from outside bodies. The ICB takes all the plans for all the services in the area to NHS England and agrees on funding levels. Negotiations continue during the year for next year’s funding. The NHSE rewards trusts that do well in certain areas and has just announced some capital funding for buildings and extra services, including mental health in the acute hospitals. This, though, we are told, is not additional money. This carrot-and-stick funding is inappropriate and wasteful; it just lets a few positive headlines help some MPs.

The ICBs ( separate and distinct from the Hospitals and provider services) face significant cuts in their functions and funding as Wes Streeting implements his peculiar plans for the NHS.

The Government spends less on healthcare than other advanced countries.

 Wes Streeting, the Labour Secretary of  State for Health and Social Care, has proclaimed that the NHS will get no extra funding without “major surgery” and reform, including more use of the private sector.

The Health Service Journal reports that his year, “Integrated care boards and trusts are collectively aiming to make efficiency savings of 7.1 per cent or £11bn.”

These cuts are imposed while the winter crisis in our hospitals lives on through the summer in some places and is unlikely to improve next winter. At the same time, we have unemployed GPs, people needing GP care, and more than six million people waiting for treatment.

Women’s health sees some of the longest waiting lists, and our Maternity outcomes urgently need to be improved. Women hold up half the sky and make up nearly 80% of the NHS workforce. They are more likely to think of the NHS when voting. Yet our healthcare is disrespected in so many ways. The country has a Maternity crisis, and mental health care is severely damaged. Social care is a disgrace.

Liverpool Women’s Hospital is now part of the NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group, which comprises The Royal, Aintree, Broadgreen, and Liverpool Women’s Hospital. Other Liverpool Hospitals will also join the Group soon. “Liverpool Heart and Chest will join by September this year, the Walton Centre by December, and the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre by March 2026.”

(No, you didn’t miss the public consultation about the creation of this Group because there was none.)

Liverpool Women’s Hospital is still technically a separate Trust; however, the final say now rests with this group board, none of whom, as far as we can tell, have obstetric or midwifery expertise.

“Although LUHFT and LWH will remain in operation as statutory entities, in all other aspects, they will delegate authority to NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group (UHLG)”.

Hospitals receive funding via the ICB. They also agree on their planned treatments and urgent and emergency care Plans with the ICB. The Trusts are paid for what they plan to deliver.

 The Trusts and the ICB had drawn up these plans in detail. NHSE had appointed outside bodies, like Price Waterhouse Coopers,  to work with the  Liverpool boards and the ICB to oversee their finances and to reduce spending. It was just such a worked-out package that NHSE  declined. Further,  NHSE  would withdraw previous deficit funding of over £176m to Cheshire and Merseyside if the books were not balanced. Each Trust was given far less money than they expected.

The CEO of the Liverpool Group explained that, having received less funding, they had to decide which services to cut. But, they were then told they still had to meet the original service targets with less money.

So, Liverpool Women’s Hospital is facing more financial problems. It is a small hospital whose funding is determined by the Maternity tariff, and the Maternity tariff( funding) is inadequate across the country.

These national cuts are a policy decision distinct from previous years. They come after years of Austerity, privatisation, and underfunding in the NHS. Sadly, this Government’s policies are little different from the last.

Campaigns do make a difference. If you fight, you might just win.The more people involved, the more likely we are to win. So, we have to campaign harder and draw more people into the campaigns to Restore and Repair the NHS.

The NHS came from ordinary people, unions, women’s organisations and community groups. That is to whom we must turn again. Please join the campaigns to restore and repair the NHS. Contact us for details on how you can help.

There may well be some waste and overspending in the NHS. These cuts happen while more than six million people are waiting for treatment. Some treatments, like those for endometriosis and young people’s mental health, need to improve. We need democracy and community oversight in the NHS.

When our campaigners go to meetings and read their papers, we still have limited sight of what’s going on and only retired people really have the time to attend these meetings.

On June 5th, we could not even hear crucial sections of the meeting where significant changes in the funding and delivery of services were being discussed. We were “told off “for asking them to speak up in what is supposed to be “a meeting held in public.” They have promised to use microphones at the next meeting. There is no effective democratic scrutiny of the NHS.

This new board format shows less detail of Liverpool Women’s Hospital matters. We do not, for example, see the staffing fill rates for different services as an issue that matters very much to women giving birth. From the reports that we did see, we learned that Liverpool Women’s Hospital has a significant waiting list for Gynaecology treatment:

“Gynaecology remains a challenged speciality nationally in terms of long waits and capacity constraints. At LWH, referrals into the Gynaecology suspected cancer pathway have significantly increased over the last 3 years, increasing from 3,500 per year in 2021/22 to 6,000 per year in 2024/25 – a 71% increase. Demand has been exacerbated by changes in the Post Menopausal Bleeding pathway as well as significant long waits for General Gynaecology services. LWH is also the Tertiary provider for Gynaecological Cancer across Cheshire & Merseyside.” Page 239 in the Board papers

The hospital is opening three new “ambulatory” (daytime) treatment rooms. However, increased demand has already shown a need for still more capacity and money to fund that capacity. We were told that close work with other cancer teams across the Group and support from across Cheshire and Merseyside are helping to develop an effective plan to drive down this waiting list.

Gynaecology has one of the longest waiting lists across the country.

In March 2025, Endometriosis UK wrote New data shows the non-cancer gynaecology lists continuing to stand at over 580,000 women in England alone, with women waiting months and even years with serious, progressive conditions, including endometriosis.

 In December 2024, The Guardian wrote that waiting lists for gynaecology appointments across the UK had more than doubled since February 2020. Records show around three-quarters of a million (755,046) women’s health appointments are waiting to happen – up from 360,400 just before the pandemic..

The NHS should be a nationwide, publicly delivered, well-funded and well-staffed service. Our campaign always called for cooperation between hospitals and rejected the Conservative ideas of competition between hospitals and bringing the market economy into the NHS.

Unsurprisingly, pressure is being put on the workforce to work harder. All kinds of stunts are coming in, like outsourcing, insourcing (not the same as bringing services back in-house), changing how bank nurses are paid, not filling vacancies and more privatisation. Privatisation is not more cost-effective, nor does it deliver better patient outcomes. Services, too, will be cut.

It is unacceptable that the Government is imposing such a scale of cuts while we wait for treatment.

We learned little of the plans currently being drawn up for the future of “Women’s Hospital Services in Liverpool”. We questioned whether staff at LWH had been told that one option was a new build on the Royal site. It seems it was mentioned at a staff briefing, but only as a reference to the options years ago. The ICB had categorically ruled out a new build for Liverpool Women’s Hospital on the old Royal site, and the site has been agreed upon as a new building for the university. The Echo reported on June 5th about more details for the site of the old Royal, including an improved entrance to the Royal Hospital. There is no mention of a rebuild for Liverpool Women’s Hospital, although plans can change until construction starts.

We want the Liverpool Women’s Hospital to be properly funded and staffed and to remain on the Crown Street site in cooperation with other hospitals.

Our huge petition, online and on paper, says

“Save the Liverpool Women’s Hospital. No closure. No privatisation. No cuts. No merger. Reorganise the funding structures, not the hospital. Our babies and mothers, our sick women deserve the very best.”

Why is this important?

All the maternity and women’s health provision of Liverpool was pulled into this one site. It’s a much loved hospital. It provides crucial specialised care and the daily joy of new babies. #one born. The driving force for closure is a clumsy funding structure not the needs of women and babies. The alternative of wards in the new Royal is not an equivalent.

This is a modern hospital on a good site. Our taxes built it for our babies and for our women.“

We campaign to save Liverpool Women’s Hospital, to Restore, Repair the NHS, and to make the NHS a great place to work. Please help. Combining our paper and online petitions, we have 81,470 signatures. Please help us get even more. Our work includes petitions, leaflets, stalls, rallies, working with other Maternity campaigns and with community groups, unions, Keep Our NHS Public, and other NHS campaign groups, our Facebook page, and this blog aims to provide information and help campaign organisation.

Proposals for the future of Liverpool Women’s Hospital seem likely to be published before the end of the year. They will then have to go to a public consultation.

We heard on our stalls that staff at Liverpool Women’s Hospital had been told that the hospital would be rebuilt on the site of the demolished old Royal. We asked the ICB, “There is mention of a meeting with the LWH staff to reassure them about the process. Was there mention of the likelihood of funding for a new building on the Royal Site? We have been told that this happened, but this contradicts earlier statements from this board. ”

We asked the Hospitals Group board,” Regarding Women’s services in Liverpool, has the suggestion of a new Liverpool Women’s Hospital at the Royal site been raised with staff either at the Royal or LWH?“

The ICB answered. “There was a staff engagement event in February 2025. This event was to update staff on the progress and next steps of the programme i.e. the development of an options appraisal process. Consideration of the funding requirements are a part of that process for developing potential options to address the risks identified; this will be both capital and revenue costs. This was discussed in general and hypothetical terms only, as no funding decisions have been made at this point.”

We need clarity on this. If staff are being reassured by ideas of a significant new build, an idea that contradicts what the public has been told repeatedly, there is a lack of clarity.

Meanwhile, the fight to protect and improve healthcare for all our mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, lovers, and every baby continues in these grim circumstances.

Our grandparents and great-grandparents fought for and won the NHS as healthcare for all, free at the point of care, publicly provided, funded by the government, providing the best available treatment in a timely fashion. The impact of the NHS on women’s lives was profound. The NHS was won at a time of hardship in the British economy, when Liverpool and other cities were still full of bomb sites. Our current period of cuts and closures, of declining outcomes and greater birth trauma, is robbing us of the legacy left to us by the generation that defeated fascism. Fight for our healthcare like your grandparents, great-grandparents, and even great-great-grandparents. In the early 20th Century, the working-class women of Liverpool fought long and hard for better healthcare and won it. We can do that too.